The strong silent type … Jude-Emmanuel Nwosu delves into gaming's 'Silent Protagonists,' exploring their history, relevance, and purpose in the gaming world.
Silent protagonists have led video games for decades and are now a staple of the industry. These protagonists are staples of the RPG, Shooter, and Platformer genres but can be seen in many other types of games and their subgenres. The player experiences these games through their perspective with the only caveat being that they have little dialogue of their own, if any. Their vocals can range from the complete silence of Chell from the Portal games to simple grunts and exclamations of exertion and surprise like Link from The Legend of Zelda franchise, and as far as entire spoken lines of speech dropped in accompaniment to dialogue options like Joker from Persona 5.
Some games have their silent protagonists offer brief narration represented as an internal monologue. For example, everyone who has played an older Pokémon game is aware of the frustration that comes from trying to ride a bike in a restricted area. Your player character will think of ‘advice,’ stopping them from using their two-wheeled mount. However these ‘thoughts’ are a lot more like generic guidance from the game itself instead of the voice of our game’s lead.
All of these limitations make storytelling appear impossible with a silent character as the lead. One solution is to designate the speaking role to someone else. Many silent protagonists will have a companion character either posing or answering questions on their behalf. This character is usually close to the protagonist and joins their journey near the beginning. Typically, these characters are separate from the game’s action and take supporting roles like finding items or conferring special abilities to the protagonist. The perpetually nagging fairy Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is a well-known example. She served as the mute Link’s guide and hint-supplier.
If the protagonist is part of an ensemble cast they may not even need someone to be their mouthpiece. The protagonist can let their bookish party member ask about lore details or the reckless best friend could show what not to do in the world. Unfortunately, don’t expect much back-and-forth with the main character. At most their allies will occasionally ask for their opinion and if the protagonist is nameable, their companions won’t even use their name in voiced dialogue, referring to them by a generic epithet that relates to their relevance in the story like ‘Leader’ or ‘Captain.’ In Fire Emblem Three Houses, the protagonist is a teacher at a monastic school and is always referred to as ‘Professor’ by the majority of the cast even though they no longer fit that role later in the story.
Typically, these characters are separate from the game’s action and take supporting roles like finding items or conferring special abilities to the protagonist. The perpetually nagging fairy Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, is a well-known example.
However, plot relevance is all some silent protagonists have for characterisation. The protagonist of Shadow of the Colossus is a mostly speechless young boy known as Wander and nothing else. The player knows nothing about who he is, where he comes from, or why he and his sister are in the desolate wasteland of the game’s setting. It’s as if Wander didn’t exist before the events of the story. Even when these protagonists have a backstory of their own, it tends to be somewhat shallow in comparison to the supporting cast. Crono, the protagonist of Chrono Trigger, is a simple village boy and there isn’t much more to him before the plot. Compared to his unique companions, like a frog-knight with a vengeance or an amnesiac robot from the future, Crono doesn’t stand out.
This tendency for mute main characters to lack characterisation and backstory plays into one of their chief strengths: immersion emphasis. Many gamers consider silent protagonists terrific vehicles for immersion; in some games, the protagonist is purposefully bland to provide a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto.
The producer of The Legend of Zelda franchise, Eiji Aonuma designed Link with androgynous physical features, in the hopes that anyone can see themselves as the hero of Hyrule. The adventures in a Zelda game aren’t supposed to belong to Link alone but be shared with the player. Link’s silence is supposed to be replaced by the player’s voice. This emphasis towards immersion is heightened in RPGs with the customisable avatars of titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Elden Ring.
Many gamers consider silent protagonists terrific vehicles for immersion; in some games the protagonist is purposefully bland to provide a blank slate for the player to project themselves onto.
In a game where the player can make the protagonist appear however they wish, a predetermined voice would conflict with the immersion. A character can convey a lot of individuality and personality through a voice which leaves little room for the player to transfer their own personal identity. The compromise for the lack of actual lines of dialogue in these games comes in the form of non-voiced dialogue options, which usually represent different kinds of personalities. There can be an option that makes light of a serious situation, an option to be aggressive during a negotiation or an option to simply be brave in the face of evil like a good protagonist. This is a staple for visual novels as well as RPGs and the idea is to allow the player to craft their own story. However, dialogue options are far from a perfect solution to granting a protagonist communication. In many games, these options carry very little weight, since the plot of the game is on a script that will not deviate no matter how many times a player picks ‘the funny option.’ If the protagonist is in a group, one person may acknowledge the line briefly but everyone else will progress the conversation as if the protagonist never spoke.
That being said, a protagonist can still contribute to the story even if they are silent as a mime.
The older games from the Final Fantasy series were mostly devoid of speech from the player characters. Instead of talking, the characters would act out scenes through their animations alone. This approach to storytelling was taken because of hardware limitations but even when the technology allowed for dialogue some games still opted to keep their protagonists silent. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Stars, features the titular Mario as the protagonist. Mario keeps his speech minimal in his platforming adventures and that is no different in this game, but the exaggerated expressions from his animations still retain Mario’s positive energy.
Silence from the protagonist is an obstacle that can be surmounted with creativity from game designers but an audible protagonist doesn’t need to be the norm. Many games simply don’t need a talkative protagonist. The Metroid games are all about exploring and surviving an ominous and unfamiliar environment. The feeling of isolation is palpable in every entry. Samus is always completely alone and while she does have a voice in the newer games, there is never another character with whom to converse. Here, the gameplay takes priority, dialogue taking a backseat, to massive critical and financial success.
A silent protagonist is a challenge to create if a game designer wants to tell a story, but if the goal is to make an engaging– but more importantly– fun experience then there is not necessarily a need for the main character to speak at length. Excessive speech can be a problem even in narrative-focused games. Last year the action RPG Forspoken was released with a middling reception. One of the biggest complaints was the unnecessary amount of dialogue between the protagonist, Frey, and her companion character, Cuff.
A silent protagonist is a challenge to create if a game designer wants to tell a story, but if the goal is to make an engaging– but more importantly– fun experience then there is not necessarily a need for the main character to speak at length.
Silent protagonists are a longstanding tradition in video games but that doesn’t make them relics of the past. Game designers have either found ways to counteract the taciturn nature of their main character or have fully embraced it as a part of their characters. The challenges that come with silent protagonists may be vexing but video games as a whole just wouldn’t be the same without them.