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mullet2000 · Jun 10, 2014

Link to the stage demo today

I just found this...incredibly odd and jarring for a French developed game...that takes place in France....during the French Revolution. Why make a creative choice like that? Of any developer out there, Ubisoft probably has the easiest access to French voice actors. I know that the English accent tend to unfortunate become the defacto "European" accent in a lot of films and such, but an Ubisoft game, specifically, being like this is pretty odd to me.

Anyway, anyone else notice this? My history background is probably making it annoy me more than it should, but it bugs me!

HarryKS · Jun 10, 2014

I was very surprised to hear the voices as well. Thought they were going to go with Francophones as well.

C'est un affront.

Squidofman · Jun 10, 2014

Well, you could play the older AC games in Italian. I'd guess we can play these in French with subtitles (like we could with the Vita game).

Creaking · Jun 10, 2014

Yeah, I dunno. Kind of bothers me, I was hoping to hear a lot of French accents.

I don't understand the reasoning.

whitemex88 · Jun 10, 2014

i was wondering the same. anyone of the french developers could've voiced it

Santiako · Jun 10, 2014

You'll be able to switch to French voices most likely. (and german, spanish, italian, portuguese, etc

)

mullet2000 · Jun 10, 2014

Squidofman said:
Well, you could play the older AC games in Italian. I'd guess we can play these in French with subtitles (like we could with the Vita game).

Oh, you certainly could. But Ezio's English voice-acting accent was Italian, at least.

Deleted member 80556 · Jun 10, 2014

I was actually surprised, considering Ubisoft is a French company. I'd think they'd push for this.

Whatever "french VO and subtitles walkthrough" FTW!

Guevara · Jun 10, 2014

English accents are shorthand for classy

ButchCat · Jun 10, 2014

Was it confirmed the protagonist was French?

Thatoneguy64 · Jun 10, 2014

Yeah, it was a bit odd. Them speaking English is totally fine, but why not a French accent? Just not sure why they specifically used British for everyone.

Toxi · Jun 10, 2014

It's par for the course.

figadapaura · Jun 10, 2014

I want it in English with French accents. English accents make no sense. :/

Succinct Verbosity · Jun 10, 2014

When portraying foreign languages with an imperialistic flavour most people subconsciously link it to the British accents. Blame Hollywood.

Montresor · Jun 10, 2014

Creaking said:
Yeah, I dunno. Kind of bothers me, I was hoping to hear a lot of French accents.

I don't understand the reasoning.

The reason is simple - the mainstream will not buy a game that is voiced entirely in French.

I love that AC Liberation has a lot of french accents. And Black Flag's amazing fictional modern day video game studio. DAT Abstergo Entertainment.

mullet2000 · Jun 10, 2014

ButchCat said:
Was it confirmed the protagonist was French?

I don't know, but his name is French.

And the English voice acting thing applies to the French aristocrats and all that too, anyway!

Discotheque · Jun 10, 2014

it's the go-to neutral accent for historical periods.

american doesn't work at all, and they probably think the french might veer into parody or fear it won't be accepted i guess.

hydruxo · Jun 10, 2014

Arno might not be French though. I don't think they've said his origin yet.

Sober · Jun 10, 2014

Santiako said:
You'll be able to switch to French voices most likely. (and german, spanish, italian, portuguese, etc )

Yeah I'm gonna just probably switch to French language/English subtitles for this.

But then I guess they'll accidentally make the PC English or something.

beril · Jun 10, 2014

Hopefully you'll be able to play it with full French voices. Doing an English dub with French accents is just stupid

KillerMan91 · Jun 10, 2014

It would be nice if the whole game would be in french but people in some specific countries can't read subs so nope.

NYCmetsfan · Jun 10, 2014

ButchCat said:
Was it confirmed the protagonist was French?

His name is Alex I think (or was that the guy he had to kill?). Which is both English and french. But he referred to Paris as "our city"

KillerMan91 said:
It would be nice if the whole game would be in french but people in some specific countries can't read subs so nope.

I wish they'd have this option.

The Praiseworthy · Jun 10, 2014

Yeah... it's upsetting me as well :\

IdreamofHIME · Jun 10, 2014

Why would they have French accents?

George Oscar Bluth II · Jun 10, 2014

Surprised they didn't get VAs who are French but fluent in English. It would've made things a lot better, in my opinion.

figadapaura · Jun 10, 2014

Toxi said:
It's par for the course.

That's usually more common for Roman era stuff, not the 1800s...

the cake is fake · Jun 10, 2014

what's the big deal, brah?

Discotheque · Jun 10, 2014

Not The Droid You're Looking For said:
Surprised they didn't get VAs who are French but fluent in English. It would've made things a lot better, in my opinion.

vincent cassell as the protagonist would be too good

Enosh · Jun 10, 2014

ButchCat said:
Was it confirmed the protagonist was French?

he is half french half austrian
there is a character video on the official AC youtube channel

edit: this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gypgS8Y9fgs

edit2: well doesn't say half so maybe he is just 1/4 of one or something ^^

mullet2000 · Jun 10, 2014

IdreamofHIME said:
Why would they have French accents?

Why would they have English accents?

Jb · Jun 10, 2014

French people speaking english with a heavy accent get very grating very fast.
Trust me.

strafer · Jun 10, 2014

listen to this

will probably be in this AC too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJrPwdIV7zA

figadapaura · Jun 10, 2014

IdreamofHIME said:
Why would they have French accents?

Why did Ezio have an Italian accent?

Aliquidmeri · Jun 10, 2014

It's been done before.

LycanXIII · Jun 10, 2014

Well, in AC4 they say that they changed accents to make them more likable, or something like that.

ChawlieTheFair · Jun 10, 2014

ubisoft est tres mal a francais parle acteur

highschool french coming in handy

Pachimari · Jun 10, 2014

Do we even know anything about the protagonist? Like if he's French and what his name is?

Edit:
Saw the video linked above.

ButchCat · Jun 10, 2014

mullet2000 said:
I don't know, but his name is French.

And the English voice acting thing applies to the French aristocrats and all that too, anyway!

The backstory could be that he spends a good chunk of his life in England and now he's back home? Otherwise it's like AC1 all over again which stuck out like a sore thumb.

figadapaura · Jun 10, 2014

APKmetsfan said:
His name is Alex I think (or was that the guy he had to kill?). Which is both English and french. But he referred to Paris as "our city"

His name is Arnaud, I believe. Very French.

LycanXIII said:
Well, in AC4 they say that they changed accents to make them more likable, or something like that.

Who changed accent? I don't remember anyone not sounding like where they're from.

Red Chocobo · Jun 10, 2014

Any excuse for them to have us as the bad guys again.

bon · Jun 10, 2014

They probably focus tested it and found that Americans prefer English accents over French accents.

IdreamofHIME · Jun 10, 2014

mullet2000 said:
Why would they have English accents?

Because they are speaking English and not French?

It's a real gripe of mine to hear people put on an accent to speak English in a foreign setting, when the movie/tvshow/game is entirely is in English.

Hunt for Red October did it best. 5mins in Russian, zoom into to Sean Connery's mouth and cut to English (with normal actor accents) half way through a sentence and keep it that way for the rest of the movie.
It's like the TARDIS is translating it for you ^_^

BurnOutBrighter · Jun 10, 2014

Hollywood has been doing this for decades. Even Germans can speak English and speak with British accents.

daffy · Jun 10, 2014

Montresor said:
The reason is simple - the mainstream will not buy a game that is voiced entirely in French.

I love that AC Liberation has a lot of french accents. And Black Flag's amazing fictional modern day video game studio. DAT Abstergo Entertainment.

This. Got to it before I finished my post.

Edit: And this

Jb said:
French people speaking english with a heavy accent get very grating very fast.
Trust me.

I'M living proof hahaha

Toxi · Jun 10, 2014

Discotheque said:
it's the go-to neutral accent for historical periods.

american doesn't work at all, and they probably think the french might veer into parody or fear it won't be accepted i guess.

It's not neutral, it's just traditional. The reason American (Or any other) "doesn't work" is because we're so used to British being used instead.

figadapaura said:
That's usually more common for Roman era stuff, not the 1800s...

It's common in any historical setting, including 1800s France. The recent Les Miserables film also had everyone using a British accent.

Black Mantis · Jun 10, 2014

Juan29.zapata said:
I was actually surprised, considering Ubisoft is a French company. I'd think they'd push for this.

Whatever "french VO and subtitles walkthrough" FTW!

This.

figadapaura · Jun 10, 2014

IdreamofHIME said:
Because they are speaking English and not French?

It's a real gripe of mine to hear people put on an accent to speak English in a foreign setting, when the movie/tvshow/game is entirely is in English.

Hunt for Red October did it best. 5mins in Russian, zoom into to Sean Connery's mouth and cut to English (with normal actor accents) half way through a sentence and keep it that way for the rest of the movie.
It's like the TARDIS is translating it for you ^_^

How do you know they'd be putting it on?

DECK'ARD · Jun 10, 2014

It should be English imitating a French accent a la Monty Python.

ComputerMKII · Jun 10, 2014

The Animus translates everything. Did you not play Assassin's Creed?

omelette du fromage

velociraptor · Jun 10, 2014

Everyone in Assassin's Creed I, Assassin's Creed II, Brotherhood and Revelations had a native accent.

The English accents threw me off. You're playing a game, in Paris, during the French revolution, yet it sounds like the British are involved in the plot... lol

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