Bethesda didn’t think Fallout 4’s protagonist voice acting in the RPG would be so controversial – “we were keeping pace with the industry”

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Bethesda didn’t think Fallout 4’s protagonist voice acting in the RPG would be so controversial – “we were keeping pace with the industry”

When it comes to Bethesda protagonists, Fallout 4’s Nate and Nora aren’t quite the blank canvas you might be used to. They both have a story and voice acting that gives them a sense of who they are before you tell them where they’ll go. Even though the design call still divides fans today, the RPG’s lead designer says it was just a sign of the times, man.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Emil Pagliarulo said the call “didn’t seem as controversial as it ended up being,” although you can perhaps see some lessons Bethesda learned from it for Starfield several years later.

“When Fallout 4 came out in fall 2015, the protagonist’s voice was very common,” he muses. “I actually don’t think there was a AAA video game at that time that didn’t have a voiced protagonist. So it seemed like in a way we were keeping up with the pace of the industry, and it was also a way for us to show the protagonist with different emotions, and the voice acting with different feelings.

Read the rest of our Fallout 4 interview here – Bethesda looks back on 10 years of Fallout 4: “You have to accept the creative choices you make on each game, even in retrospect.”