- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Posted by: opogjijijp
Probably the same useless stupid lazy bull-blam!- that Bungie has done in their prev ious games(as as valve): So YOU can be the protoganist.
It's completely -blam!- stupid, because I know I'm not the protagonist, and having them not speak is far more immersion breaking that having them speak. I'm perfectly capable of being immersed in stories written from a limited first person perspective, there's no good reason for the silent protagonist thing. So I'll go by my personal canon, and say that he's mute.
In reality, It's nothing more than lazy storytelling. They don't need to write an actual character! Why take the effort when an empty shell like Gordon Freeman will do? It also saves times and money, because they don't need to hire a voice actor, record the dialog, and put it in game. So I guess it is more than lazy storytelling. It's lazy storytelling that saves money.
Spot on. Nintendo does this all the time too with everything from Zelda to Pokemon. A lot of RPG characters as well, most noteably Final Fantasy 7's Cloud. Master Chief is also almost a silent protagonist, he only has like a dozen lines throughout 3 games, so the same applies to him as well.
At least they didn't give the Rookie amnesia.