• shhh...

    Kill The Silent Protagonist?

    Over at Midway studio Surreal's 'Surreal Game Design' developer weblog, Rick Luebbers, has found a blight infecting games, and he's not afraid to shout about it. What is it?

    This evil, this disease, is the idea of a Silent Protagonist. Its symptoms are easy to diagnose: the protagonist never speaks and as seemingly important events fly by he/she says nothing... further, all the NPCs go to great lengths to talk around the player and advance the story almost in spite of him... It appears as a terrible, horrific, mark upon otherwise good or even great games. Half-Life 2 and Dragon Quest 8 are perfect high profile examples in people's recent memories.

    Luebbers believes that "...the whole premise is counter-productive and totally immersion breaking" - but how about you good folks? Are you happy for the main character to shut up and 'be you' while you play?

    Kill The Silent Protagonist [Surreal Game Design]

    2:00 PM on Wed Nov 21 2007
    By simonc
    6,173 views, 259 comments

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