After E3 2021 Bethesda fans know they’ve been able to find out over the last three years since the game’s reveal. Prospective players have been given the game’s release date, the name of a major faction, and a batch of concept art revealing the kinds of locations they can expect to visit in the studio’s first new RPG IP in over 25 years.
There’s one major question hanging overStarfield, however; whether or not the game’s protagonist will be voiced as inFallout 4, or silent as in olderFalloutgames andThe Elder Scrollsseries. Although Bethesda has yet to officially confirm an answer, developer comments appear to point in one direction.
RELATED:One Tiny Detail Might Reveal When Starfield is Set
Bethesda’s Protagonists
Fallout 4saw a major change in Bethesda’s storytelling style, introducing a voiced player character for the first time. Between the player’s voice and the third-person dialogue camera, the game’s dialogue had more in common withseries likeMass Effectthan previousFalloutgames.
Although ambitious, many players found the voicedFallout 4protagonisttoo restrictive and prescriptive in terms of roleplaying freedom. Not only did the voiced player characters take away a great degree of player choice about who their character was, but in many cases lines were delivered and received in unexpected ways thanks to the game’s vague dialogue wheel options.
There hasn’t been a first-person single-player Bethesda RPG released sinceFallout 4. It’s unlikely, however, thatThe Elder Scrollsserieswill ever try and incorporate a voiced player character. The range of races inThe Elder Scrollsis simply too broad, and having different voice actors read every potential player line in the game for each different race and gender would be a far larger task than the already monumental one undertaken to bringFallout 4’s voiced protagonists to life.
As a new IP whether or notStarfieldis going to have a voiced protagonist is far less clear. There have been several hints that the main quest will have player’s searching for intelligentalien life inStarfield. Combined with the hard sci-fi aesthetics revealed so far, and it’s almost certain that players will only be able to play as human characters in the upcoming game. This would only make voicingStarfield’s character as difficult as it was to voiceFallout 4’s protagonist, but there are some good reasons to think that Bethesda may be going in a different direction.
RELATED:Bethesda’s Confidence in Starfield’s Release Date is Telling
Starfield’s Player Character
For start,Todd Howard comparedStarfieldtoSkyriminstead ofFalloutwhen talking about the game, and said in an interview with the Telegraph that new game would let players “express the character they want to be.” He also mentioned thatStarfieldwill have some more traditional RPG mechanics than recent Bethesda games.
While this doesn’t confirm that the game’s protagonist will not be voiced,Fallout 4’s voiced protagonist was certainly less traditional. It also prevented some other more traditional RPG mechanics from making it to the game. Perks which inpreviousFalloutgamesunlocked new dialogue, for example, no longer gave the player new dialogue options but simply made them more likely to succeed certain dialogue checks.
The comparison toSkyrimmakes it likely thatStarfieldwill attempt to focus on roleplaying freedom. Part of the secret ofSkyrim’s success is just how muchreplay valueits blank-slate protagonist and totally open world give the game.Starfieldis set for release exactly 11 years after Skyrim’s 11.11.11 release date, which seems to be an attempt on Bethesda’s part to draw more comparisons betweenStarfieldandSkyrimthanStarfieldandFallout 4. Although it has yet to be confirmed, the evidence revealed so far seems to point to a voicedStarfieldprotagonist being unlikely.
Starfieldreleases June 04, 2025, for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
