One Simple AC:Unity Question For Ubisoft

[Shamanic Rhythm]

And no, it has nothing to do with framerate.

Why is it you can't get the in-game characters to sound even vaguely French? All the characters I've seen so far while watching some LPs have this painfully crisp recieved pronunciation, one that sounds like a Canadian attempting to fake an upper-class British accent. It carries across into the little snippets of actual French you hear now and then, it's like listening to a high school student reading from a phrasebook.

Considering that French used to be the dominant language of Europe in and around this period, you could at least have made a little more effort to make it sound authentic. It's really jarring.

 

[Slayer4472]

And no, it has nothing to do with framerate.

Why is it you can't get the in-game characters to sound even vaguely French? All the characters I've seen so far while watching some LPs have this painfully crisp recieved pronunciation, one that sounds like a Canadian attempting to fake an upper-class British accent. It carries across into the little snippets of actual French you hear now and then, it's like listening to a high school student reading from a phrasebook.

Considering that French used to be the dominant language of Europe in and around this period, you could at least have made a little more effort to make it sound authentic. It's really jarring.

You know, I could've sworn that Ubisoft was a French developer. They ought to be able to find French voice actors pretty easily.

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

I seldom find this to be maintained in many games. The metro games did a good job at least.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

You know, I could've sworn that Ubisoft was a French developer. They ought to be able to find French voice actors pretty easily.

Precisely. Ubisoft is headquartered in France, and their largest studio is in Montreal, so it's not like French is some kind of alien language to them...

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Oi mates, e'rryone in France spowk like this in ye oldey France durin' the Revolution. Get it right ya plonkers.

 

[Batou667]

I haven't been following Unity at all, so take my opinion with a pinch of salt... but it could have been a conscious decision. A strong French accent is very rarely associated with protagonists in Western entertainment, and for some reason a well-elocuted British accent is the go-to "classical" accent that has become culturally-engrained shorthand for "these guys are in the past and probably not even speaking English". Think of something like Gladiator or 300; why are all these Romans and Greeks speaking with British accents? And yet, we accept it. If they had American accents it'd be jarring.

Mind you, they included stereotypical Italian accents in Assassin's Creed II - there could be some mild anti-Frenchyism at play? Could it be that the average American gamer just wouldn't warm to a French protagonist?

 

[Aesir23]

I haven't been following Unity at all, so take my opinion with a pinch of salt... but it could have been a conscious decision. A strong French accent is very rarely associated with protagonists in Western entertainment, and for some reason a well-elocuted British accent is the go-to "classical" accent that has become culturally-engrained shorthand for "these guys are in the past and probably not even speaking English". Think of something like Gladiator or 300; why are all these Romans and Greeks speaking with British accents? And yet, we accept it. If they had American accents it'd be jarring.

Mind you, they included stereotypical Italian accents in Assassin's Creed II - there could be some mild anti-Frenchyism at play? Could it be that the average American gamer just wouldn't warm to a French protagonist?

I imagine part of it is that they believe American audiences wouldn't relate/warm to/like a French-accented protagonist. If I recall, that was one of the excuses for having the general "Americans=Good, British=Bad" thing in AC3. I mean, I know it was based around the American Revolution but I don't think I remember a single good guy that was a Loyalist versus the numerous characters on your side of the seemingly Patriot persuasion.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

So I was thinking about this over lunch, I came back to google the accents in other AC games, and I stumbled across this: http://blog.ubi.com/assassins-creed-unity-accents/

?The idea is that the Animus is translating everything into the language you?re playing in,? Amancio explains. ?That?s why, since you?re an Anglophone, you?re hearing all the dialogue and cinematics in English. It would really make no sense for there to be a French accent because that would mean that this French character is trying to address you in accented English. Everyone in the game is not trying to speak English for your benefit.?

Gotta say, I find it hard to imagine a more pissweak excuse. Not to mention one that is completely incongruous - why doesn't the animus translate all the Italian spoken in AC2? How come everyone in that game speaks with a thick Italian accent?

But wait, it gets better:

But that raises the question: Why a British accent? The answer is simple. When trying to figure out what accent would be best-suited to the time period and the location, the development team took a tip from Hollywood. British accents, they determined, just have more of a period feel than an American accent would. It gives the distinct feeling of being set in the past in a foreign place.

Now that's some grade-A bullshit. So first you throw the idea of having a period accent out the window because by your in-game logic it wouldn't make sense, but then you opt for a particular accent because it sounds more period?

Thankfully, they drop the charade near the end:

?It?s an artistic choice,? says Amancio. ?It?s a new generation and the story is a little bit more serious, and having everyone speak in a thick French accent would detract a lot from the experience.?

There you have it folks, a French accent is not considered 'serious'. At this point I'm amazed that Ubisoft's HQ hasn't been raided by the Academie Francaise.

 

[Netrigan]

Where do people get off trying to pass off an English actor as a French character?

This reminds me of a complaint I saw many years ago when Garth Ennis was doing The Punisher. The Russian had showed up and was using English slang (notably "bloody") and a bunch of idjits got up in arms about it. Damn it, don't those foreign comic book writers know that Russians only speak American English.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

snip

Semi-related question: is there a way to mod every single piece of non-period exposition and gameplay completely out of the AC series? The "animus" and all of the accompanying story/gameplay are fucking stupid. They're like the really, really bad first idea someone carelessly tosses out during a drunken brainstorming session at 3am... "dude, what if it was all like virtual reality happening in the future for a bunch of reasons? I mean how SWEET was The Matrix!!"

More evidence that some people really should stick to thinking inside the box.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

snip

Semi-related question: is there a way to mod every single piece of non-period exposition and gameplay completely out of the AC series? The "animus" and all of the accompanying story/gameplay are fucking stupid. They're like the really, really bad first idea someone carelessly tosses out during a drunken brainstorming session at 3am... "dude, what if it was all like virtual reality happening in the future for a bunch of reasons? I mean how SWEET was The Matrix!!"

More evidence that some people really should stick to thinking inside the box.

Someone do this, I would pay money for it.

The whole meta-narrative is the most superfluous bullshit ever. It turns an otherwise good period drama into a ridiculous conspiracy theory that would make even the most hardcore Illuminati truther go 'yeah, no'. It constantly interrupts the immersion in a display of fourth wall breaking that even Bertolt Brecht would have thought was going to far. I thought they might have jettisoned it by now but no, they're still clinging to the Abstergo plot line like a dog to a leg.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

And no, it has nothing to do with framerate.

Why is it you can't get the in-game characters to sound even vaguely French? All the characters I've seen so far while watching some LPs have this painfully crisp recieved pronunciation, one that sounds like a Canadian attempting to fake an upper-class British accent. It carries across into the little snippets of actual French you hear now and then, it's like listening to a high school student reading from a phrasebook.

Considering that French used to be the dominant language of Europe in and around this period, you could at least have made a little more effort to make it sound authentic. It's really jarring.

To be fair to Assassin's Creed, this was handwaved in the very first AC game. Since Desmond was an American the Animus/his mind made everyone speak modern English instead of their original language since Desmond didn't know those languages but the person who's memory he accessed did. At least there's a (weak) in-game reason for it.