Engaging with abstract and realistic representations of voices in video games

Video games represent characters’ voices using sounds that range from highly realistic (for instance, voice-acted dialogue with comprehensible linguistic meaning) to very abstract (for instance, ‘beep speech’), as well as a variety of sounds in between. In this article, I establish a broad framework in which to consider representations of voices in video games that involve sound. I draw on Brian Kane’s model of voice, which conceptualizes voice in terms of statement, sound and site of emission, and I identify several qualities of sounds that can cast representations of voices as relatively realistic or relatively abstract. I propose that realistic qualities in these sounds may suggest to players that they can engage with a related aspect of voice fairly realistically, through sound, whereas abstract qualities can suggest that any engagement with that aspect of voice should also or primarily involve text, other visuals and/or internal imaginative imagery. To consider some ways in which this may be the case, I explore several brief examples from a variety of games as well as a deeper case study of representations of voices in the game Pyre (Supergiant Games 2017).