Why no accents?

[ROBOCRIPPLE_]

When I played Dishonored 4 years ago, I thought, "Dunwall resembles London and other cities in the UK in the 19th century, so why doesn't anyone speak in an English or Scottish accent?"

 

It probably would've been cool if Corvo Attano and other Serkonans speak in an Italian or Spanish accent, Jessamine Kaldwin, Emily Kaldwin, Delilah Copperspoon, and other Gristolites speak in an English accent, and Anton Sokolov and other Tyvians speak in a Slavic or Germanic accent. Maybe give Meagan Foster and other black characters a Sub-Saharan African accent as well... It would've made the game world seem more colorful...

 

But then again, different accents aren't easy to produce nor does everyone understand them. I guess the American/Canadian accent is the clearest or easiest for anyone to understand, from those learning English to fluent and native speakers.

Edited May 27, 2017 by ROBOCRIPPLE_

[HellcoreFire]

If you're born in and grew up in a particular place, you will have the same accent as everyone else, no matter what your background is. Unless you choose to speak slang in informal situations of course. The developers probably just didn't want to make a racist game.

[Arkthur]

I believe the accent is there, just maybe too soft. Hiriam Burrows and Sokolov had marked accents that do contrast with the rest of the characters.

[IDiivil]

In case of Dishonored, they were probably using a casting agency specialising in mostly American actors. I mean just look at the list of voice actors in the game and you'll see some pretty familiar names from film and TV.

 

Also an interesting thing to consider is that the kind of English accents that are spoken in modern Britain probably do not accurately represent the varieties that were spoken in the 19th century. If people were to actually speak authentic Victorian-era English in videogames, players would probably be put off by all the weird expressions and sounds they'd be using. So even if it might seem more authentic, it might actually not be so. Authenticity is kind of an interesting concept in that sense, especially when most people underestimate the speed at which languages change. For example if there was a videogame set in 15th century England, they most likely would use Modern English rather than Middle English, mainly because barely anybody could actually understand the latter.

 

Accents and different varieties of languages are of course a good and convenient way to create difference between characters, even in fantasy worlds. Take a show like Game of Thrones for example, where the origins and ethnicities of the people in that fantasy world are portrayed by using accents from the real world. That makes the characters instantly recognisable. I also think Dishonored 2 did something similar when moving to another part of the world, although they kept it pretty minor from what I remember.

 

Accents can also be used in non-related settings for similar effect. It's not at all uncommon to see a person speaking English with a Russian accent in a scifi game or movie, which of course makes them instantly recognisable as some kind of a criminal or a crook, at least to many people in Western audiences. We're all quite prejudiced when it comes to evaluating how other people speak, and it's an incredibly useful tool at times.

[HaserPL]

I don't know what's the point in making this thread but fine. THIS IS FICTIONAL WORLD, THERE IS NO ENGLAND, NO SCOTLAND, NO SPAIN so why would they speak with those accents? As far as I saw and understood after basically 10+ playtroughs per those 2 games, they are all speaking in one language so they made it to be as simple as it can.

[DrBloodmoney]

I must admit, that occured to me during the game too, but its made to appeal to americans, so it gets the genero-americano accents.

 

29 minutes ago, HaserPL said:

I don't know what's the point in making this thread but fine. THIS IS FICTIONAL WORLD, THERE IS NO ENGLAND, NO SCOTLAND, NO SPAIN so why would they speak with those accents? As far as I saw and understood after basically 10+ playtroughs per those 2 games, they are all speaking in one language so they made it to be as simple as it can.

 

There is also NO AMERICA so the american accents dont make sense. 

[HaserPL]

1 hour ago, DrBloodmoney said:

There is also NO AMERICA so the american accents dont make sense. 

Are you for real? Voice actors have accents, Most of them were from NA so of course the game had to have an accent -.-

[DrBloodmoney]

1 hour ago, HaserPL said:

Are you for real? Voice actors have accents, Most of them were from NA so of course the game had to have an accent -.-

 

Voice actors are paid to do what the game director tells them to do. If they were doing American accents then that's because someone told them to do that.

 

i love Dishonored, but I thought it was an odd choice, given the Anglo slant of the rest of the game world (and the Mediterranean slant of Dishonored 2). So did the OP, so I agreed - particularly considering it was 100% a choice, given that Arkane os a french developer and full of Europeans.

 

 

[SkyMason]

Completely agree with everyone in this thread that they should have basically hired the cast of EastEnders. Nothing would have given me more joy than Corvo squaring up to one of those guards whose faces have clearly been swapped with their arses and just blurting out : "U WOT M8. U HAVING A LARF? ILL NUT YOU ONE SON. CMON IF YOU THINK YOUR HARD ENUFF." Great point well made OP.

[DrBloodmoney]

6 minutes ago, SkyMason said:

Completely agree with everyone in this thread that they should have basically hired the cast of EastEnders. Nothing would have given me more joy than Corvo squaring up to one of those guards whose faces have clearly been swapped with their arses and just blurting out : "U WOT M8. U HAVING A LARF? ILL NUT YOU ONE SON. CMON IF YOU THINK YOUR HARD ENUFF." Great point well made OP.

 

Reasonable point, but then, it worked for Game of Thrones...