Why do so many games nowadays just never shut up?

[touchfuzzy]

Man a recent trend that's been bugging me in video games is just CONSTANT interruptions for more dialogue and conversations (within gameplay, not cut scenes).

I first noticed this and got annoyed with it in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Chloe and Nadine just talking and yakking away while I'm trying to drive around and check my map. Then in God of War, endless stories from the head guy while you're in the boat.

Recently this came to a head with me in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The game is just constant dialogue. It never lets you swing through the city for more than ten seconds without a call coming through or some podcast starting.

Often you'll get to your destination before the conversation is even finished. Then what do I do - stand there and wait for the boring dialogue to play out, or just go do my mission? If you just go so the mission, once you're out of it the characters will do some phoney "so anyways..." and just keep talking, or in the case of Miles sometimes the conversations start over from the start! It just never ends.

Obviously the thing they all have in common is they're Sony first party games, but I don't think it's exclusive to them? Does this bother anybody else? I don't find I ever get any interesting character development or lore out of them, especially since these are fairly cut scene / walk and talk heavy games as well.

Do devs just think we love hearing their characters talk more than we actually do? Sometimes I just want to play and move around and admire the game in silence!

 

[xxracerxx]

I love it. Sorry it bothers you.

Also games like GoW are really smart about it and doing other things, they will pick up the story when you get back to the boat.

 

[Bear]

Breath of the Wild is perfect for you.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I think it's good. Characterization, lore and storytelling should happen more "in game" and not just in non interactive cutscenes. It should be a cohesive whole.

 

[Fliesen]

My main issue with Spiderman specifically is the fact that the podcasts pretty much always get interrupted. It feels like a 30 second podcasts always starts when i'm 10 seconds from my next destination...

and you can't just listen to them at a later point without having to stay in the menu (i.e. you can't re-listen to them while swinging through NYC).

GoW did it fantastically with the whole "... where were we?... oh yea ..." thing.

 

[fourfourfun]

Breath of the Wild is perfect for you.

Click to shrink...

This is the first thing I thought of when seeing this thread.

 

[MayorSquirtle]

I don't find I ever get any interesting character development or lore out of them

Click to shrink...

Disagree strongly on that if we're talking about God of War and Spider-Man which are two of your main complaints. Anyway, the reason for this is that devs want to tell a lot of story and have a lot of character interactions/development, but cutscenes are expensive to produce and too many cutscenes is its own problem anyway, so having characters chat while you're doing basic traversal let's them make the story bigger with very little animation work added.

 

[vixolus]

You can stop receiving calls when you're done with the story and you can turn off the podcasts in MM.

I think it's clever and gives nice use of what can often be monotonous and tedious travel. Having the lines seamlessly flow and end and pick back up is a great innovation. It is definitely a Sony thing probably because when something works they all tend to soak it in.

 

[arcadepc]

You can mute the in-game dialogue at least, though you have to listen to it in FMV sequences.

I prefer reading text instead of having to listen to the dialogue. Eg when the remake of Monkey Island added dialogue, I felt something was lost.

 

[zoodoo]

I loved it in GoW.

 

[Bernkastel]

I love Mimir.

 

[____]

My main issue with Spiderman specifically is the fact that the podcasts pretty much always get interrupted. It feels like a 30 second podcasts always starts when i'm 10 seconds from my next destination...

and you can't just listen to them at a later point without having to stay in the menu (i.e. you can't re-listen to them while swinging through NYC).

GoW did it fantastically with the whole "... where were we?... oh yea ..." thing.

Click to shrink...

Spider-Man does this for conversations but not podcasts smh

 

[Linus815]

it can be done well, and it is in some games
in others its pretty annoying

didnt like it in horizon zero dawn whatsoever
also days gone... it was so janky, with how Deacon would ramble on his own while other dialogue gets spliced in

but i quite like it in uncharted

 

[Astronut325]

I love it. Sorry it bothers you.

Also games like GoW are really smart about it and doing other things, they will pick up the story when you get back to the boat.

Click to shrink...

This. I like it when SP characters are expressing their thoughts, and emotions during gameplay.

 

[sirap]

Laughs in Kojima.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

The only time it bothers me is when the next destination is 10 feet away and there are like 2 mins of dialogue left to go, so I need to awkwardly stand around while it wraps up. Otherwise I don't think twice about it. I IMMENSELY prefer it to locked slow-walk scenes. Some of my favorite character moments in UC4 were triggering extended talks with certain characters during the story.

Either way, if I want to just fuck around or do side missions and shit, the game won't be bombarding you with dialogue again until you continue the main story.

 

[Deleted member 49319]

At least dialogues don't halt gameplay in these games.
Try Metro Exodus.

 

[Deleted member 76797]

Sony are kings of the forced walk and chat. They even had it in their Miles Morales announcement trailer lmao.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

The only time I was annoyed by this was Batman AC and AK, the constant chatter from the goons was annoying AF.

 

[jotun?]

I don't find I ever get any interesting character development or lore out of them

Click to shrink...

Did you forget about Kratos's story about the horse and the stag?

And Mimir's stories are full of interesting lore

 

[Deleted member 79058]

Yeah, it's terrible. Worse yet when the game makes you slower to hear the conversation.
I can't see myself replaying God of War 2K18. Too many obligatory cutscenes and dialogue. I think you can't skip cutscenes in GOW 1-2-3, but they're mostly short and awesome enough to watch.

Death to "cinematic" games.

I hope SSDs kills this trend. No more need to chat while loading the game. And walking in tight spaces and lifting rocks so your partner can pass.

 

[Hazmat]

This was one of the things I hated about Days Gone. Deacon is already really unlikeable, and then he's constantly muttering some annoying bullshit.

 

[CreepingFear]

Oh man, reminds me of playing Spiderman Remastered and having to hear Screwball mock me over and over as I try to get the tier 3 stealth challenge lol. Yeah, it would be nice if there was more granular mute options sometimes.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

Definitely don't play Call of the Sea. Or Fenyx Rising.

 

[FooF]

Playing Miles I don't think I heard a full podcast as they were immediately cut off by 4 other bits of dialogue all competing for me to listen too them. They all felt pointless and henchmen repeating the same 3 lines of dialogue over and over gotta love it.

 

[Janus]

It depends on the game. In RPGs I love those kind of banter between your party members. Always prefer more interaction than less in those games.

In some open world games, however, these conversations while traveling can become annoying if they are too frequent and don't carry much character development. They are really bad, when they haven't been paced well and you usually have to stand around to listen to the whole conversation.

 

[Seijuro]

Dialogue while I can actually play the game as intended doesn't bother me at all, like most of the time in Miles. I could do with way less cutscenes in today's gaming landscape though.

 

[Septimus Prime]

I like it, personally. It's definitely a lot nicer than monotonous, silent traversal and then digging through a million data logs to get lore.

The only time it bothers me is when the next destination is 10 feet away and there are like 2 mins of dialogue left to go, so I need to awkwardly stand around while it wraps up. Otherwise I don't think twice about it. I IMMENSELY prefer it to locked slow-walk scenes. Some of my favorite character moments in UC4 were triggering extended talks with certain characters during the story.

Either way, if I want to just fuck around or do side missions and shit, the game won't be bombarding you with dialogue again until you continue the main story.

Click to shrink...

See, my problem is that I would always wander everywhere, looking for hidden stuff. So a character would be like, "Follow me over here," and then I'd just run off to everywhere else.

 

[kitler53]

i loved it in GoW. got a lot of story and back story told without the typical game-play mechanic of reading documents or listening to audio logs. and with GoW they put it into what otherwise would have been the worst part of the game which is just traversing from here to there.

sorry you didn't like it but you are wrong.

 

[Cantaim]

Shits wild way too many sounds in game trying to compete for the players attention. To the point that the sound constantly interrupts itself.

 

[IDreamOfHime]

I really like it, wish more games had it. Sorry OP, haha.

 

[shoemasta]

I really like it. It allows for more organic characterization and storytelling. Worse case scenario, its not interesting and you can ignore it while playing.

 

[Deleted member 5725]

I like how they do it in the Naughty Dog games and in God of War. Give me those stories and banter. In Spider-Man games those podcasts and calls can be a bit annoying sometimes though (not too often thankfully).

 

[wafflebrain]

I like the walk and chat stuff ND does, helps that their dialogue and VO is good of course. Not so much a fan of Rockstar's version, their perceived need for dialogue in almost every mission while you're going from point A to B is grating, and many times its cutting room floor stuff, absolutely nothing important to character development or backstory. This was especially true in GTA V, and while some of it was funny a lot of it could have been cut out. Like I get it you have two characters traveling together and maybe its a bit weird to have total silence between them, but after awhile I still wanted it to be less present. A lot of it feels like the writers straining to come up with random shit for the characters to talk about so it ends up coming off forced and not very natural, though the VO actors still do an admirable job delivering those lines.

 

[Elephant]

I like it because it offers the opportunity to add story and context without cutscenes. The action continues.

 

[Duxxy3]

The only recent game where this bothered me was Death Stranding. I guess the developer wanted the player to still feel connected out in the wide open world with nobody around.

 

[RedOnePunch]

The head guy in GoW was great though.

 

[Shining Star]

Recently this came to a head with me in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The game is just constant dialogue. It never lets you swing through the city for more than ten seconds without a call coming through or some podcast starting.

Often you'll get to your destination before the conversation is even finished. Then what do I do - stand there and wait for the boring dialogue to play out, or just go do my mission? If you just go so the mission, once you're out of it the characters will do some phoney "so anyways..." and just keep talking, or in the case of Miles sometimes the conversations start over from the start! It just never ends.

Click to shrink...

Yes, this is the worst! It's just bad game design. They should know how long these conversation will take to play out and how long it will take for a player to reach the next point that will interrupt the dialogue.

I think people who say they like this are confusing "characters talk during gameplay" with what the OP is really saying "characters never shut up and talk for way too long."

 

[MP!]

Its obnoxious.

 

[Papercuts]

It only bugs me when a game keeps trying to have NPCs push you along to hurry up. Like damn shut up.

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

I quite like it. It's also nice when the voice direction is great.

Like, I think Hades would be a significantly worse game if there wasn't constant talking.

 

[test_account]

Personally, i like it. I think it makes the game feel more "alive", or what i shall call it, when they talk about stuff thats relevant to the story and/or location that they're in. And in in God of War, i like the stories being told during the boat rides. I do think that the dialogue ends when Mimir (the head) has said his story though, or am i mistaken? Its been a while since i played the game.

That said, i guess it can variate from game to game though. For example, i noticed in more recent times that i can find Mario's "woohoo" voice on basically every jump to be a bit annoying, but i do get used to it in the end though. Maybe there are other games as well where i can find it a bit annoying, but i cant think of anything in specific right now. But in games like Uncharted and God of War, i personally like it because i feel that it adds to atmosphere to the games :) But its a subjective thing.

Do devs just think we love hearing their characters talk more than we actually do? Sometimes I just want to play and move around and admire the game in silence!

Click to shrink...

Its possible, but several of people do enjoy it this way as well, so they're both right and wrong in that case. I'm guessing its not easy to find a solution that fits everyone. Maybe there could be a possibility to add some sort of option/toggle in the game to turn it on and off, but i'm not sure how much extra work that would take to filiter out all the optional dialouge. But in the end, its a subjective thing if one like it or not =)

EDIT: Or do you mean dialouge that repeats itself when e.g driving around? Basically if you drive around for one hour free roaming, that the character will often say something during that one hour?

 

[poncle]

I hate it, had to lower voice volume to zero in Ratchet & Clank

 

[Van Bur3n]

I find it annoying. Another reason why I cherish FromSoftware's games. Game is quiet most of the time, and when it finally does speak, I think it all the more adds to the point over a game with constant exposition.

 

[Mik2121]

I liked how they did it in Uncharted 4 and The Lost Legacy games. The conversations would happen during basic traversal where you can concentrate on those, and when the action would kick in they would shut up. Same for The Last of Us Part 2 and GoW. Bit in all those games you are traveling with someone. It only makes sense that they'd be speaking.

If it's a single character and they're talking to themselves all the time, then I do find it a bit jarring. If it's a random comment here and there, it's fine.

 

[NewDayMarch]

Kingdom Hearts 3 doesn't even let you fucking BREATHE, it has so many hints, corrections, and hand-holding. You're never able to discover anything for yourself because the game immediately states if something interesting is in the vicinity.

Recently played DmC (which I loved), and it does a great job just having an audio cue for the Damned souls (which makes perfect sense in universe), and other secrets/Keys that you just have to dig around for. It sucks getting lost in a game world, but this gen has definitely over-corrected.

 

[ClearMetal]

Yeah, I'm not a fan either. Now I don't play games like God of War or Spider-Man. But in open world RPGs, the best moments are when you're travelling from point A to point B, on foot, and there's nothing to distract you except the sounds and the sights of the world itself. Show more, tell less.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Yes, this is the worst! It's just bad game design. They should know how long these conversation will take to play out and how long it will take for a player to reach the next point that will interrupt the dialogue.

I think people who say they like this are confusing "characters talk during gameplay" with what the OP is really saying "characters never shut up and talk for way too long."

Click to shrink...

The OP also cited God of War and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy as examples, and I don't feel those games have this problem.

 

[Rick44-4]

I love it. Sorry it bothers you.

Also games like GoW are really smart about it and doing other things, they will pick up the story when you get back to the boat.

Click to shrink...

I actually really enjoyed the head in god of war lol, can't agree with op on this one. Minor provided some great lore, especially for those not too familiar with norse mythology.

 

[Manu]

As always, it depends on the execution. I don't mind how Naughty Dog does it, but it was infuriating in the Tomb Raider reboot. Lara would just blurt the answer to every puzzle (as basic as they were already) if it took you more than 10 seconds to figure it out yourself.

"I should use the torch to light all the beacons and open the door."

Why even make it a puzzle at that point.