Borderlands 2 writer regrets nearly silent protagonists

[Administrator]

Borderlands 2 writer Anthony Burch regrets making its playable cast so quiet.
The former Gearbox employee wrote a fascinating postmortem on Borderlands 2's player character dialogue at Kotaku where he found himself following in the footsteps of Valve (Half-Life, Portal) until a focus group convinced him he was wrong. Later, a much bigger audience would do the same.
Initially Burch was a huge fan of the silent protagonist, because he didn't want there to be any friction between what the player wanted and what the character wanted. "This kind of characterisation works, in theory, because if your character never says anything you (the player) disagree with, you're more 'immersed,'" Burch explained. "You're not at risk of your protagonist saying something that you personally disagree with."
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