Starfield has many, many more lines of dialog than Skyrim and Fallout 4

[midian182]

Highly anticipated: While not an indication of quality, we've come to expect big RPGs to feature plenty of dialog. That's certainly going to be the case with Bethesda's upcoming Starfield: it will have well over twice the number of lines found in Skyrim and 40,000 more than Fallout 4.

Bethesda Game Studio's director and executive producer Todd Howard, who previously called Starfield "Skyrim in space," appeared at Xbox's Tokyo Game Show 2021 showcase to talk about the game. He said that it would have a full Japanese voiceover track, revealing that Starfield features more than 150,000 lines of dialog.

Todd Howards appeared on stream to announce that Starfield will have a complete Japanese localization (just like Redfall) and mentioned that the game has over 150,000 lines of dialogue apparently #TGS2021

(Fallout 4 had 111,000 lines, Skyrim 60,000) pic.twitter.com/0PzvVtojyj

— Nibel (@Nibellion) September 30, 2021

That figure puts it ahead of some of Bethesda's other massive RPGs. The evergreen Skyrim manages 60,000 lines, while the loquacious Fallout 4 comes in at 110,000 lines. BioWare, meanwhile, said Mass Effect 3 has 40,000 lines.

While it's hard to translate the figures into lines of dialog, PC Gamer notes that Beamdog co-founder Trent Oster said Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition has close to a million words.

Starfield, Bethesda's first new IP in a quarter of a century, is still more than a year away, arriving on November 22, 2022. It will be an Xbox Series S/X exclusive—and PC, of course—thanks to Microsoft's $7.5 billion purchase of Bethesda parent ZeniMax in September 2020.

Bethesda's Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications, Pete Hines, apologized to PlayStation 5 owners for the game's exclusivity earlier this year. But it seems not everyone at the company feels the same way; Howard said he felt making it exclusive to Xbox/PC was in the game's best interest.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91527-starfield-has-many-many-more-lines-dialog-than.html

 

[R00sT3R]

I don't believe for one second it will hit that 2022 release date..Not one.

 

[Dimitriid]

Chatty is not always better: I've learn that with Pillars of Eternity 1: it was heavily pushed as a "return to form" for the CRPG era of the late 90s and early 2000s in the vein of Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate, Planescape: Torment, etc.) And it was being worked on by Obsidian which is just former interplay/Black Isle people that worked on those infinity engine games! And they've got a bunch of goals on their kickstarter so it's gonna be great isn't it!?

Well...Not quite: it's tedious and boring. Yes there's *A LOT* of text to read in the game but it's just not done in an engaging way: it reads like a fairly pretentious novel. Which would be fine if you were you know, reading an actual book and not staring at a tiny dialog window. So both the gameplay gets constantly interrupted by literal text walls of exposition and dialogue and the other way around: if the over abundance of text doesn't gets in the way the fact that you have to get through some fairly difficult combat that requires your full attention to get to the next good parts to read probably will.

So I am no longer on the school of "More dialogue is always more better"

 

[Dimitriid]

I don't believe for one second it will hit that 2022 release date..Not one.

They could if they do what they've done before: just hire like 5 different voice actors or just copy/paste the dialogue from previous games: "My ancestors are smiling at me /space/ imperial, can you say the same!" "I used to be a /space/ adventurer like you, then I took a /blaster/ to the knee"

 

[yRaz]

They could if they do what they've done before: just hire like 5 different voice actors or just copy/paste the dialogue from previous games: "My ancestors are smiling at me /space/ imperial, can you say the same!" "I used to be a /space/ adventurer like you, then I took a /blaster/ to the knee"

I love the elder scrolls games, but skyrim was horrible. Objectively, as games, the elders scrolls games suck. As who played daggerfall in the 90s, I realized what it is about the series that makes people fall in love with it. It creates a feeling in the player that sucks them into the world. Combat sucks, voice acting sucks, story is 6/10, but something about those games sucks you in and makes you "live" in that world.

 

[DZillaXx]

I love the elder scrolls games, but skyrim was horrible. Objectively, as games, the elders scrolls games suck. As who played daggerfall in the 90s, I realized what it is about the series that makes people fall in love with it. It creates a feeling in the player that sucks them into the world. Combat sucks, voice acting sucks, story is 6/10, but something about those games sucks you in and makes you "live" in that world.

I'm not sure you played the same Skyrim the rest of us played.

The game was nothing but great experience. So easy to have gotten sucked in during the first play though. A game is nothing more than the experience it provides, and elderscroll games have always been about the experience.

That being said in may ways Oblivion and Morrowind were better games, but something about the experience Skyrim created was just great. The World was leagues better than the games that came before it.

 

[yRaz]

I'm not sure you played the same Skyrim the rest of us played.

The game was nothing but great experience. So easy to have gotten sucked in during the first play though. A game is nothing more than the experience it provides, and elderscroll games have always been about the experience.

That being said in may ways Oblivion and Morrowind were better games, but something about the experience Skyrim created was just great. The World was leagues better than the games that came before it.

Voice acting was absolute garbage, I cringe everytime I have to meet the gray beards. Skyrim is a great world to explore and it sucks you in, but every part of the game mechanics sucks.

I guess people have really low standards. The combat sucks, the magic sucks, the crafting sucks, the voice acting on average is better than oblivion, but it sucks worse than oblivion. Look, I loved skyrim but I don't deny what it is. I'm a total elderscrolls nerd, you've probably used some of my mods if you play on PC. That doesn't stop skyrim from being a garbage game. World building is the only thing they got right. Same with fallout 4, but there is no accounting for taste

 

[DZillaXx]

Voice acting was absolute garbage, I cringe everytime I have to meet the gray beards. Skyrim is a great world to explore and it sucks you in, but every part of the game mechanics sucks.

I guess people have really low standards. The combat sucks, the magic sucks, the crafting sucks, the voice acting on average is better than oblivion, but it sucks worse than oblivion. Look, I loved skyrim but I don't deny what it is. I'm a total elderscrolls nerd, you've probably used some of my mods if you play on PC. That doesn't stop skyrim from being a garbage game. World building is the only thing they got right. Same with fallout 4, but there is no accounting for taste

2011 was a different time.

You gotta remember for most people this was played on the Xbox 360.

This game was day one for me on the PC, and it was by far one of the better looking games out at the time. First time playthrough was an easy 100hr+, and pretty much every hour of it was enjoyed. I put most of my time in this game before Mods were even an option.

Please don't diss a game for how it aged, upon release it was one hell of an experience. Which is why you get older folk like me who still value the early life experience. Even with all the bugs. Like having to use no clipping to go through a door to continue the story, as the game had a game breaking bug that would keep the NPC from opening the door for you.

But I remember how janky most games were even back in 2011. GTA4 by your standards would have been a pretty crappy game too.

 

[mountains]

The modding community made (and makes) Skyrim for me. And it is still going strong and ever advancing. Many of the issues that the vanilla game had continue to be mitigated by mods. They are still finding, and patching, bugs. New developments in animation, new combat, AI, world space mods. New tools. And of course Wabbajack for people who don't want to spend as much time tinkering. Those who have not played in a while may want to take a new look.

If you have developed mods, I can understand the frustration with the limitations of the underlying game. And thank you for contributing to the community.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

Chatty is not always better: I've learn that with Pillars of Eternity 1: it was heavily pushed as a "return to form" for the CRPG era of the late 90s and early 2000s in the vein of Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate, Planescape: Torment, etc.) And it was being worked on by Obsidian which is just former interplay/Black Isle people that worked on those infinity engine games! And they've got a bunch of goals on their kickstarter so it's gonna be great isn't it!?

Well...Not quite: it's tedious and boring. Yes there's *A LOT* of text to read in the game but it's just not done in an engaging way: it reads like a fairly pretentious novel. Which would be fine if you were you know, reading an actual book and not staring at a tiny dialog window. So both the gameplay gets constantly interrupted by literal text walls of exposition and dialogue and the other way around: if the over abundance of text doesn't gets in the way the fact that you have to get through some fairly difficult combat that requires your full attention to get to the next good parts to read probably will.

So I am no longer on the school of "More dialogue is always more better"

Plus ++++±+ for the Planescape Torment reference, still to this day it stands as one of the best written game stories to exist, characterization and everything else was spot on, to this day philosophically speaking I think Bioshock was the game that came close if not matching while still falling a little short. I honestly haven't seen a game that had that type of impact and writing.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

2011 was a different time.

You gotta remember for most people this was played on the Xbox 360.

This game was day one for me on the PC, and it was by far one of the better looking games out at the time. First time playthrough was an easy 100hr+, and pretty much every hour of it was enjoyed. I put most of my time in this game before Mods were even an option.

Please don't diss a game for how it aged, upon release it was one hell of an experience. Which is why you get older folk like me who still value the early life experience. Even with all the bugs. Like having to use no clipping to go through a door to continue the story, as the game had a game breaking bug that would keep the NPC from opening the door for you.

But I remember how janky most games were even back in 2011. GTA4 by your standards would have been a pretty crappy game too.

When it released it wasn't cutting edge either, The dude is kind of correct, even the older ES games broke amazing new features into PC gaming with what they did, Skyrim was a severely cut down experience compared to the others, the games series was always ambitious until Howard took over the reigns, don't get me wrong Skyrim is still an amazing experience but it's not exactly masterpiece level, none of them really were but they did things at the time no other games did. To an extent they became really lazy and annexed a portion of the fan base that wanted the RPG that the series was famous for, grant it broadened the appeal and fanbase but it is really overrated, don't get me wrong still love it and I am a modder to that has worked on mods since Morrowind. Hasn't stopped me playing or creating for it.

 

[Art5performance]

I don't believe for one second it will hit that 2022 release date..Not one.

I think the same , hype the sh*t out of it , for the next upcoming 2 years....

 

[jpuroila]

I'm not sure you played the same Skyrim the rest of us played.

The game was nothing but great experience. So easy to have gotten sucked in during the first play though. A game is nothing more than the experience it provides, and elderscroll games have always been about the experience.

That being said in may ways Oblivion and Morrowind were better games, but something about the experience Skyrim created was just great. The World was leagues better than the games that came before it.

Bethesda hasn't released an RPG that came even close to being a "great experience" since Morrowind.

 

[HamSlice]

I don't believe for one second it will hit that 2022 release date..Not one.

It will launch in 2022 but it will launch just like every ES and FO game, completely broken.

 

[Athlonite]

So basically it's a 5 year mission to go where every other man has gone before to seek out already found planets and people and shoot the **** out of them!.... Oh yay