Game Dialogue Is Changing—And Not Everyone's a Fan

Hit Points

Dialogue in video games has come a long way—transforming from simple on-screen text to immersive, voice-acted performances that rival film and television. As graphics improve and AAA studios lean into narrative-heavy gameplay, some titles now feel like interactive movies, complete with cinematic cutscenes, internal monologues, and dynamic character exchanges. But not every player is on board with this shift. Some miss the fast-paced action and minimal exposition of earlier games. Yair Ben-Dor explores how developers are navigating this growing divide in the gaming community.

Transcript

00:00Dialogue in video games has become a subject with differing opinions.

00:05As graphics get more advanced and AAA studios implement more cutscenes, some games have

00:10become days-long interactable movies with fully fleshed characters that let you into

00:15their world with conversational interaction, monologues, thoughts, or reading.

00:20But not everyone enjoys this.

00:23According to Axios, players have increasingly bristled over talkative characters, pining

00:27for the days of silent protagonists, just as some studios are betting on buzzy AI tech

00:33to add even more dialogue to their games.

00:36Take Forspoken, for example, one of 2023's earliest big releases for PS5.

00:42Developer Square Enix recently updated the game with the ability to adjust how chatty the

00:47main protagonist is with her magical companion, after players spoke out about the encumbering

00:53amount of talking they had to listen to.

00:55Meanwhile, developer Ubisoft announced that it's using an AI ghostwriter tool to write

01:01dialogue for some of its games, with the aim of keeping NPCs individually interesting and

01:06realistic with less manual work.

01:09This isn't necessarily a good thing.

01:11Ubisoft and other studios implementing this kind of AI work may be putting both writers

01:15and actors out of a job.

01:18And the results may not be what they expect.

01:20What happens when you take the human element out of artistic storytelling?

01:24I guess it's only a matter of time until we find out.

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