Does The Legend of Zelda series need voice acting?

Breath of the Wild is the best-selling Legend of Zelda game ever. It is the first to include voice acting and has sold amazingly, despite voice acting being probably its worst feature. Before the release of Breath of the Wild, language representation in Zelda games were limited to text boxes directed at the player. Link also used to make sounds in the form of hard-to-discern shouts of glee, anguish, and pain (notably in the Nintendo 64 Zelda games as well as Zelda: The Wind Waker). The stories of these games, specifically the world-building and atmosphere, were some of the best aspects of these games. It could be argued that Breath of the Wild’s voice acting doesn’t further the experience and is not necessary to the story. It also may limit the imagination of the player, and it generally isn’t executed very well (a lot of people play the game with voice acting set to Japanese and don’t mind that they don’t understand the spoken dialogue). Was voice acting a mistake for the Zelda series, and what will the impact of the upcoming Zelda movie have on storytelling in Zelda games?

Back around 2010/2011, when the release of Skyward Sword was imminent, there was much debate in the Zelda community about whether the series should implement full voice acting like many other big franchises such as Final Fantasy, the Sonic games, and numerous action RPGs such as Skyrim. The examples of voice acting in video games from the time were a mixed bag in terms of quality. The Sonic games, even then, were notorious in terms of how they’d ruined the thematic potential of the story through the poor voice acting and introduction of excessively annoying characters. 

Irritating voice acting, together with a few games that contained glitchy and boring gameplay, had ruined Sonic’s reputation, so the feeling in the Zelda community was that the same thing could happen to Zelda if voice acting was introduced. Zelda could continue as it always had and use text boxes to tell the story, and the experience would still be epic. However, others thought that Nintendo was a modern video game developer and that introducing a feature that many other big franchises were implementing was necessary for success. Plus, it would allow more detailed and cinematic experiences to be created.

So, in the end, Nintendo decided to implement voice acting not in its new game, Skyward Sword, but in the next game, which was then known as Zelda Wii U (which became Breath of the Wild). When Breath of the Wild finally arrived, the voice acting was limited to certain cut scenes, and dialogue boxes remained. However, the voice acting didn’t add to the experience, and no complex stories with turns and twists were told. The game could have used dialogue boxes instead of having voices, and it wouldn’t have been less of an experience. In short, voice acting wasn’t what made Zelda: Breath of the Wild a success. So, what went wrong with voice acting in Zelda? The Nintendo development process sheds some light on this.

Nintendo values gameplay over visuals. At its core, their philosophy is centered around video games being fun experiences, and it extends to their development process. For this reason, the gameplay hook of their games is created before the story is formed. In classic Zelda, gameplay hooks such as specific item mechanics and gameplay loops are created first, and the story events and world-building are built around this. Classic Zelda had such good story elements, but particularly world-building, because development was structured with gameplay being prioritized, which made development simple yet impactful. By world-building, what I mean is how sound effects, non-player character mannerisms, lore, and atmosphere all come together to create an experience. For this reason, voice acting doesn’t fit with how Zelda games are created. They reduce immersion. It seems like, with Breath of the Wild, voice acting has just been stuck onto this system with no thought of how it will affect the whole experience. But there’s another key point about the whole debate that I haven’t mentioned yet.

The playable character of the Zelda series, as the name suggests and most of you probably know, was designed to be the ‘Link’ between the player and the game world (the name is a play on words). Originally, when the first Zelda was being created, Link was just meant to be an avatar you explored the game world with. His personality and character have grown since then, and he varies in terms of personality between the more recent games. Again, this concept backs up the argument that gameplay was meant to come first for Nintendo, before story or world-building. This means that Zelda games don’t particularly fit well into using voice acting since the playable character isn’t so much a character and is more of an avatar. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, while implementing voice acting, maintain Link as a silent protagonist. This delights some purists, but for others, it just seems like a half-effort. Some would say, Zelda is a game franchise, not a movie franchise; why do they need to introduce voice acting? This is an interesting statement since recently it was announced that there will be a full live-action movie released based on the Zelda franchise.

With the recent multiple big franchise flops from well-loved series such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, both on the big screen and small, and the backlash as a result of this, it could be surprising that Nintendo is so keen to make movies out of their cherished properties. It’s even more surprising that the production based on The Legend of Zelda will be live-action and not an anime. If it were an anime, it would be easier to make fantastical creatures and places seem believable. However, live action is what we are getting. How will they deal with Link being a silent protagonist? Will they go for a realistic, serious story or a more whimsical one? I think that one thing is certain: once the Zelda movie releases, The Legend of Zelda will never be the same again. How this will influence the games is unknown, but it will probably also influence the voice acting in the games. Let’s just hope the film doesn’t flop.

The upcoming movie could have a positive influence on the voice acting in the games and the writing in terms of unique characters and interesting storylines. The voice acting we’ve had in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t feel like it has changed the way that the characters and story are developed. While it is slightly improved in terms of performance with each passing iteration (Breath of the Wild, Age of Calamity, and Tears of the Kingdom), the characters themselves don’t break with stereotypes. Patricia Sumerset plays Zelda as a damsel in distress. Daruk, the Goron seems brutish and clumsy. Revali, the Ruto, is proud and arrogant. These characters seem so obvious in terms of character and personality. Wouldn’t it have been more of an engaging experience if they were written in a way that adhered less to stereotypes? This wasn’t the fault of the voice actors, and the actors do a good job. Patricia Sumersett gives Zelda a Zelda a real personality. It’s just that the way she’s directed and the dialogue adhere quite well to traditional gender stereotypes. Metroid: Other M is the most infamous case of a character (in this case, Samus) being disrespected by being made into a vulnerable, weak person. Zelda in Breath of the Wild falls into the same trap.

If the movie can tread fresh ground and offer something new and exciting in terms of story, it’s surely going to reflect well on the games. Some aspects of Tears of the Kingdom improved story elements (the journey of the Master Sword was certainly an enjoyable fragment of the story). The story in Zelda works like the world-building does; it emerges as a result of the game design, similarly to how the story of Ocarina of Time naturally emerged with the design of the game world, seven dungeons, and towns and villages. Maybe, if the movie is a success, a hybrid approach could be taken to the story in Zelda games, and it would be good for the voice acting used in Zelda games as well.

Zelda games are amazing works of art where gameplay loops, dungeon design, and story elements form the basis of an experience, and aspects such as sound design and non-player character eccentricities help to form an atmospheric, epic, and well-flowing video game experience. In the case of Zelda, voice acting takes the player out of the experience, and the game would not lose anything positive if it were removed. It is as if voice acting was just pasted on top of an already well-designed game. On top of this, the voice acting in Breath of the Wild used scripts that made the characters appear like caricatures, and Zelda’s character seemed mentally weak and anxious and was a damsel in distress trope. The Zelda games would retain their wonder and remain great atmospheric experiences without any voice acting.

The Zelda movie, which releases in a few years, could be a huge flop, considering how difficult the prospect seems. In a live-action movie, it will be difficult to make the world and creatures look serious without being inadvertently comical, and how do you include Link, who in the games was simply the connection between the player and the game world? If they do make it a success, then it will bode well for storytelling in the Zelda games. Then a hybrid approach of Nintendo’s awesome, epic Zelda game design and movie storytelling could be targeted, and the result could be a Zelda game with complex, interesting stories and good voice acting.

The current use of voice acting in the Zelda series doesn’t fit with Nintendo’s game design. However, with the release of the Zelda movie, there will probably be changes to the Zelda video game series, irrespective of whether voice acting in Zelda improves or not. Only time will tell, but the future will definitely have some exciting moments for the Zelda franchise.