The Silent Guardian: Destiny’s Protagonist Voice Catch-22

So your guardian has nothing more to say. Perhaps he or she is just the silent type now. Perhaps he or she has a nasty vocal chord infection. Perhaps he or she just has a quiet loathing for the Ghost and how annoying it is. But, for better or worse, Bungie has decided that guardians will not have voiced roles in the story of Destiny 2. There’s a lot of debate about this on all sides: some people hate the silence, some people prefer the silence, and some people don’t care. In many ways, Destiny is a game that is the first of its kind, and with that, Bungie has encountered a crossroad in game development where it simply cannot make everybody happy with the road it chooses. It’s certainly not the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last. Destiny’s unique blend between FPS and RPG has pitfalls on both sides of any coin it flips, regardless of how much (or if at all) the main character is talking.
On its surface, Destiny appears to be a typical first person shooter. You have a badass space cowboy character with lots of guns who goes on an adventure to save the solar system from aliens. Sure sounds like Halo. Sure sounds like Gears of War. Sure sounds like Mass Effect. But it’s not fair to compare Destiny’s narrative with those games because there’s a big difference. In Halo I’m Master Chief; I experience the story through his eyes and through his voice. In Gears of War I’m Marcus Fenix; I experience the story through his eyes and through his voice. In Destiny, I’m me. I’m ACbullman. And to give you a better sense of what I mean by this, let’s take a look at my guardian and break him down in detail:

Immediately you can tell that this guy is an asshole. The first thing you notice is an excessive amount of yellow-dyed leather. The biker jacket is reminiscent of someone who applied for, and was denied entry to, the Wild Hogs biker gang. He displays an aura of self-obsession and narcissism, like the 30-year-old guy who still hangs out on Saturday nights at an 18 and up club. He tells the other Hunters that wearing capes is beneath him, but in reality it’s because the vendors refuse to sell him one. He thinks the bandito-style bandanna and ski goggles add to his badassery, but they really just reinforce how much of a tool he is. He has been booted from more fireteams based on appearance alone than any other guardian. This is my guardian. This is ACbullman. The only voice actor capable of pulling this shit off is Julia Gulia’s fiancé from The Wedding Singer.
This is where Destiny’s RPG element breaks it off from the rest of the shooters you typically see. Destiny’s narrative is not guided by the story of one character like the vast majority of shooters out there. Each guardian begins as a blank slate, but becomes more and more unique to the player as they develop. But they’re never anything other than your guardian. They are not Master Chief. They are not Marcus Fenix. Nobody else playing the game plays as them. They are you and only you. Just as the silent protagonist feels awkward and outdated in storytelling, the traditional raspy-toned, morally perfect, John Everyman character voice is almost guaranteed to be disappointing to some, underwhelming to others, and downright intrusive to a slight few. Imagine the watermelon exo being voiced by the actor who voices Marcus Fenix. It would honestly be more awkward than him not talking at all.
So at this point in development of the story, Bungie had a decision to make. Give a generic hero voice to the player’s character which is likely to detract from the character’s unique personality, or stay silent to avoid obstructing the player’s own narrative at the cost of seeming awkwardly silent in cut-scenes. This wasn’t a problem in Halo because they told you who the character was; but this time, you’re telling Bungie who the character is. This is Bungie’s Catch-22. In the end, they chose to move forward with a silent protagonist, and predictably upset a portion of the community who don’t appreciate the idea of their characters being relegated to mime status in cut-scenes.
I’m sure they could have hired voice actors to provide dialogue for the estimated 50-plus cut-scenes. It’s not like they couldn’t afford it. Bungie’s a big company. They have around 700 employees. They have Lance Reddick, Gina Torres, and Nathan Fillion on the payroll. You bet your ass they have a nice big revolving line of credit. They could afford it. They simply made the decision to stay hands-off with individual character development at the cost of awkward silence in cut-scenes, as opposed to implementing a protagonist voice at the cost of making everyone’s guardian seem like the same “traditional hero” guardian. It’s obviously not a decision everybody loves. On the flip side, however, the traditional voice-over would also not be a decision everybody loves. There’s no grey area here — the character either talks or doesn’t, so people were not going to like the decision either way. Does my guardian’s silence detract from Destiny 2’s narrative? Yes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that a traditional voice-over would fit either. There are countless substantive elements of the new story that will be far more important than whether or not your guardian is talking. Your guardian just won’t be commenting about them in cut-scenes.
I’m not here to sway you to one side or the other. I’m pretty indifferent on the issue. I played the Beta. I played the story mission. I noticed my guy wasn’t talking. It was weirdly anti-social that he wasn’t. But if he were talking in the common video game tough guy protagonist voice, I would still think it was weird. My hunter doesn’t sound like that. He sounds like Glenn Gulia and tells defeated opponents to “write a song about how they were punched in the nose for sticking their face in other people’s business.” So yeah, I noticed. It’s not perfect, but Bungie wasn’t going to implement anything to make it perfect outside of hiring Glenn Gulia to personally voice-over my character. I’ll deal with it. The real narrative for me in this game is when the end-game begins. The high stakes PvP and raids. Exploring the patrol areas. Searching for and grinding for the weapons my guardian craves. Finding him a new leather jacket. The only voice for my guardian will be my own, talking to my fireteam (and no, I do not talk like Glenn Gulia in party chat, but maybe I should). Like many other elements of the game, Destiny’s narrative presents a situation where, either way, it simply cannot fit into the traditional mold of current game narratives. Because it’s not a traditional game. That’s why I like it.
