Give your game the voice it deserves

I recently posted on my socials that in 2026, it’s time games finally starting using voice overs in addition to the text on screen which is often painstakingly long to read, and as I had expected, various game developers DM’d to say that they prefer reading text on screen and VO is distracting for them. I think I have a food for thought for them and for everyone in the industry with a similar mindset, so here you go:

1. Many times players skip the story or narrative bits altogether to continue playing the games. They use maps to go back to the instructions if they need to. So why bother put in the effort to make artwork, animations and all sorts of VFX with CPU or GPU optimisations? Afterall, some players don’t care about the transition scenes.
2. Haptics can get annoying pretty easily especially if not done for experience and rather for the sake of it. Many players turn it off, so what is the need to have it in at all?
3. Puzzle games that require intense thought on difficult levels can get negatively influenced by music and sound effects especially the loopy ones that do not contain any hints. Does that mean music should not be created at all?

I hope the pattern is clear. Games have Settings to let the player choose what is most comfortable to them. Even from an accessibility standpoint, one might prefer dull brightness when playing at night.

These customisations are already IN place for decades. Which means if you’re not exploring VOs in games, there are very very high chances you might have gotten used to the usual industry trend and missed to see a key aspect of a gameplay experience…

Quick rant: I will go ahead and also say that if it weren’t for some games that added settings to set volume levels for music and sound effects separately, there are chances that most ‘trend-followers’ would have discarded that idea in the name of it requiring extra effort to build an audio mixer!

And we’re back…

Maybe in the past, the lack of timeline was an issue but for many years now that has become an excuse. Audio middleware, artists with their own legal generative VO models etc exist. Implementation is possible faster than ever and, for the millionth time, audio is the least effort high impact element. If generative stuff is not a preference, you can always use TTS to unblock implementation and replace files (that hardly takes more than 10 seconds) when official VOs are back. And that preference you have to mute VOs — well, give a button somewhere in the UI to toggle it off. But let your stories & characters finally speak. Let them have a voice. Make your game full of an engaging experience. An analogy I use in my game audio workshops for game designers is this:

“Imagine you have a color palette for your painting project and it has everything, except blue. You will be able to draw most things in the world like desert and forest, and maybe you’re okay with that. But someday, you will want to draw sky and water. And that’s when the blue will help. Audio is that one thing that’s missing in most game dev’s understanding. Add it. Learn how to use it. Experience it. You might end up using it more than you thought you would!”

Of course the game context matters a lot and I'm not advocating to have voice overs for the sake of it or everywhere. But skipping it altogether for those narratives where the story is all about characters, I think a lot more has to be done in this direction.

I should emphasise that this might be a learning curve for a few, even for veteran game developers. But just because something has been avoided for decades doesn’t mean it should never get the attention it needs.

I hope you are slightly convinced to consider it, so here are some wins that voice overs can bring you:

1. Sonic IP – Something that every game craves for these days is repeat users. Or a way to have a connect with the players beyond the gameplay time. Music and sound effects can easily bring you this power, but if you'd like to make a character becomes its own thing, give it a voice. By voice I don't just mean specific clear English tone, but something that speaks. Duo and Pikachu are good examples of this.
2. Personal connect – when you read text, it's your own voice in your head that you're listening to. Maybe with some modulation, but it's all yours. To feel that the character as a living breathing thing, you gotta listen to its voice.
3. Notification sounds – want to bring your players back to continue the level? Why not let your character call them out, for real?

These are just a few ideas which I'm sure many in your game design team must have thought of too. For some reason, you didn't go through with it. Guess what? The time has come!

What are your thoughts? I'd love for this to start a conversation and bring voices to the table for discussion.