There is plenty of research on the harmful effects of racial stereotypes in video games/media and how it keeps certain prejudices alive. Here is a couple articles regarding the subject.
It’s not a subject I want to seen taken lightly and just pushed aside, it’s has real consequences and it’s a subject that should be taken serious.
Far from all voice actors got a professional sound recording studio at home and like many actors they travel to and from work.
Because they ain’t voice actors and the chance that IO will strike “gold” in this department is rather slim. It will end up taking more resources and a lot of manpower to look for a needle in a haystack. This is why actors got agents.
Going to point to the articles and what I just wrote above.
Yes and using more resources on voice actors is going to take resources away from other parts of the project. Are you willing to sacrifice gameplay, graphics, animation, effects over more accents? I’m not. I would also like to have my cake and eating it too.
I’m going to quote myself on post I posted not 10 posts ago.
If we’re talking regional variants certain accents or whatever I am fairly certain Mendoza and Santa Fortuna are in trouble as well. While it mostly just sounds like “spanish accent” to someone like me, I am sure people from Argentina and Colombia would like to differ.
But maybe “right/close enough considering the resources/limitations” is a more accurate way of putting it… doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well though.
No matter how it’s done, regional accents are always going to be somewhat vaguely racist for one simple reason: The characters are always speaking English. In Santa Fortuna and Mendoza, they should be speaking Spanish - not Spanish-accented English. In Chongqing, they should be speaking Mandarin - not Mandarin-accented English. Same for all levels taking place in non-English speaking countries. True authenticity would require each level to use their native languages - I don’t see any way to avoid slight racism with accented English.
I guess don’t use the stereotypical accents associated with English / non-English languages which I find impossible.
Never minded stereotypical accents in games such as Assassin’s Creed, especially the Ezio trilogy, Hitman etc. since I never though that the developers / actors tried to be racist or anything. See Postal 2 / 3 for stereotypical accents that can be considered racist / offensive.
As a Romanian I really don’t mind the voices in Contracts or find them offensive though the actors were Romanians. Wonder how it would have sounded if it was done by a non Romanians. Couldn’t have done a worse job than what South Park did
Actually went on IMD to check and I found Petronela Cimpoesu, Mircea Marghidanu, Ovidio Romanescu as the Romanian voice actors for Contracts. They were also part of the developing team. Since IO is nowadays a big multi-cultural gaming company, couldn’t they go around the office and get some volunteers to voice act in their games and fill the rolls for minor non English speaking characters?
The reason why all NPC speak English is simply due to how the game is designed, you as a player gather intel and knowledge from the NPC that inhabits each map. If IO decided to go for full authenticity then it would be on the cost of the maps narrative, opportunists and it would drastically limit world building for players who don’t speak the language at hand. There is an argument to be made about subtitles, but that also comes at a cost.
Yet there is a difference in portraying a people through stereotypes, it reinforces prejudice and is far more damaging to how we see other nations.
As I started with stating, I’m not interested in the argument that “racist stereotypes are not bad, because it’s makes a level more believable”. This isn’t a narrative we wish for people to push here, without realising how damaging it is. There is a difference between satire and a game that pride itself on delivering authentic locations.
I don’t think that having regional voice actors voice accented lines in the way they say it is problematic or harmful at all. Its not played for laughs, its just how they speak.
That isn’t even what the discussion is about, but that people wish for IO to included accents based on stereotypes back into the game, like it was the case with older titles. I have made the forums stance on this subject pretty clear and I’m not interested in seeing this agenda pushed any further.
But the game does have accents in some locations. So do you think that they should not be there? And every game that we play should always just have English and American accents as to avoid offending anyone?
It is not just about accents. While many would speak English, the native language is sparsely heard within Hitman.
It would have been best if people from Mumbai mission spoke Hindi and English (80% Hindi & 20% English) and make subtitles 100% English.
It’s clear from your response that you have not read my comments if this is your take away point.
What I been saying over and over again is that the arguments for including accents based on stereotypes is not a welcome notion on the forum. Due to the problematic nature of stereotypes in pop culture and prejudice.
I have said nothing regarding the accents in H2. Next time I expect you to read the thread before you make baseless conclusions.
I would genuinely love this! But unfortunately I think alot of people wouldnt be happy with subtitles which is such a shame. The game would feel so immersive
Now I been repeating the same thing since yesterday, it’s gets a bit tiring and redundant to have to make the same point over and over again. Especially when someone drops in without even reading what’s said before coming to conclusion.
Which they won’t be if we go by C47 as a template for games with “believable” accents. That is the notion I’m pushing against.
Oh now that we can definitely agree on. I was young when I played C47 but the accents still stick out in my mind as being incredibly insensitive. It is really a shame that having different languages wouldnt be universally accepted, that would be such a better solution imo
This, period. The old games, despite all their horrible racial stereotypes, used regional languages- this one should have, too. But regardless, I’d rather have a game that avoids racial caricatures and has the current game’s voice acting than the other way around, so WOA still comes out on top. Maybe one day we can get the best of both worlds. In any case, Norseman is wrong to conflate the use of regional language with the stereotypical depictions in old games- they are 2 different things which are easily separated.
Also, a lot of the slave labor in Dubai is Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi so that’s actually a sort of accurate detail.
I don’t think anyone wants racist stereotypes. The new dialogue systems require almost all conversations to be in English. I don’t know of fans from India, China, Colombia or Argentina feel this way. From my perspective this adds greatly to immersing yourself into another country and being around the local people. I just know I definitely feel more immersed walking around Mumbai or Chongqing than I do Sapienza or Berlin.
Agree with this - Subtitles instead of dialogue would likely create a myriad of other problems. With so many conversations going on at once and so much dialogue, which audible discussion would be subtitled for the player? Would it be the “most important” one (Ie what the target is saying or the one that’s got the most plot relevance)? Or would it be the one you zoom your camera in on? Or would it be done Cyberpunk style with subtitles floating above the heads of characters as they speak so you can be certain who is saying what?
If the language is one we don’t understand in a game with extremely verbose NPCs and a huge focus on eavesdropping and listening in to people’s conversations for clues, then that’s going to drastically change the way we experience and play the game. This isn’t a small detail to improve immersion, this is a huge deal.
Especially with the Mission Stories, that’s likely to be ridiculously confusing.
I genuinely think so few people notice or realize what accent is present - They’d just go “Oh look, foreign location and the people have accents! Sweet!” and that’s that. They just don’t want that accent to be an American one. Not saying you’re one of those people but this is an observation I noticed back when Hitman 2016 first came out and everyone was mad about the lack of “French sounding” voices in the Paris map. I recall people saying that the Paris map “Felt like America” because of the lack of French accents and voices. Obviously it was a bit jarring to hear mostly Americans but the map and building and location still felt distinctly Parisian.
This reminds me of AC: Unity and how everyone hated the fact that the main characters spoke with a British accent while generic NPCs spoke actual French.
I think IO could have used real foreign speech for the generic NPCs, and have NPCs that are related to Story Missions speak either English with an accent or speak a foreign language and have the subtitles color coded do make it easier to know who or what kind of NPC is speaking (a guard, a janitor etc.).
In HL2, each main character had it’s own color for the subtitles, generic NPCs were white and soldiers were blue.
I think you underestimate the average fellow. Sure some average Westerner may not know the difference between an accent from Morocco or Dubai. Or if Berlin was filled with Austrian accents instead of German, but they’ll have an ear for the general area. The average person has an idea of what a French accent should probably sound like. And videogames are all about illusion.
I mean it does take you out of the illusion a bit when everyone in Sapienza sounds like they’re from the US, certainly. Even if we don’t know what an authentic Italian accent actually sounds like from that region. But I think the average person would pick up on, say, Italian accents in Paris. Or German accents in Paris instead of generic French accents.
