Do you skip through the story/dialogue in the games you play? - General Discussion - Giant Bomb (2024)

Never.

Rarely even on repeat plays.

Almost never, barring replays. When I played Sekiro 3 times back to back on release, I was definitely skipping story stuff on playthroughs 2 and 3 (except for when I was hitting different paths/endings). When I replayed it again last month, I went through all the story again.

There are some extremely rare cases where I'm having a good enough time with the gameplay but am strongly disliking the story where I'll skip it on the first playthrough. I've maybe done that with 5 games ever that I actually completed.

Most recent game I did this with was Lost Ark. I made it about an hour in before I started skipping all dialogue because it was just utterly uninteresting. Of course, I stopped playing it altogether 4 or 5 hours after that, so maybe not the best example.

It depends entirely on the game. I was excited for every bit of story that I could get in PSO1. PSO2, however, lost my interest almost immediately. RPGs tend to have bits of boring, unimportant dialogue around side quests. I skip all of this filler that I can.

I’ve only ever done this with the Yakuza series and Disco Elysium, and in each case I’m talking about thumbing through dialogue I’ve read the subtitles faster than the actors could possibly deliver them, not actual cutscenes or whatever. To me, that’s monster activity.

Depends whether I give a toss about the plot.

Depends what I'm playing and why I'm playing it. Just finished going through both loops of normal in Drainus, a pretty solid indie shmup. Couldn't have cared less about the dialog in that. An RPG where I'm actually invested in the world building? I'll stay. Somtimes.

It depends.

If it's my first time through the game? Pretty much never, unless it's a fully voiced game with textboxes. In that case, If I've read through the text and the voice actor is still speaking, I'll skip that. However, these days I usually just let the VA finish and just use the text box as a guide in case I miss something he said. I usually remember story beats a lot better doing this.

If it's my first time but the dialog in question is something being repeated, like how quest givers in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night will frequently repeat dialog? Absolutely, I only need to hear that stuff one or two times.

If it's my first time but I'm so sick and tired of the story that I just want to get through it, that's actually a sign that I need to put the game down and move on, or perhaps I simply need a break from that particular game. This doesn't happen terribly often, but it has happened before.

If it's a second or third playthrough that completely depends on the game. Usually, yes, I'll read/listen to the story again, but sometimes I'm just here to get to the parts I like again and if the story isn't a part I liked much, I'll skip it.

Usually no, but I definitely skipped parts of the story in Blazblue and Soul Calibur 6. Static portraits with subtitles going on and on is just not what I'm looking for in a fighting game.

I will skip dialogue lines if I can read the subtitles more quickly than the voice actors can say them, assuming the game allows for this, like Cyberpunk and Horizon. For something like Days Gone where you can't skip a lot especially in cutscenes, I'll put up with it but I'm not super happy about it!

I never used to, but I just started playing Far Cry 6 and have skipped almost every cutscene.

I'm with Rorie on this one. I rarely actually skip a whole cutscene on first play or anything like that, but I'll often skip vocal performances of lines and just progress the dialogue as soon as I've read it, rather than wait for the voice actor to finish. Generally speaking I'm just not that interested in video game stories, largely (I think) because writing in video games usually just isn't that good anyway (with the occasional rare exception).

Generally no, but for Neon White specifically I have been. The story and delivery of said story is not interesting to me and seems at odds with the fast paced nature of the game.

The only time that I skip dialogue if its one where you can read the lines faster than the voice acting and be able to skip to the next lines.

I've only skipped lines in two games: Persona 4 when replaying it a month or two after my first playthough, and Sward Art Online: Fatal Bullet when the dialogue was too cringey.

Yeah, if it's bad and it doesn't seem like I'll need it to progress.

If we're talking just speeding up slow dialogue with VA, yeah I do that a lot unless I really like the story and VA which doesn't happen a lot.

If I'm allowed I'll generally skip though most spoken dialogue and just read quickly. Unless it's Uncharted/tlou or similar voice acting is usually a waste of time.

The dialogue needs to be truely bad for me to skip it entirely, though.

I won't skip cutscenes, but dialogue scenes that are taking too long and don't really matter in the end, I tend to skip. I've only got so much free time, and I need to finish the game, damn it.

Only on second playthroughs. At most, I might skip the voice acting if I can read faster than the characters are talking. If the writing or story are really that terrible, I'm more likely to just stop playing the game altogether (see: Outriders, Tiny Tina's Wonderlands).

I think people who skip the cutscenes are insane, particularly because those are often the people who subsequently complain "the game isn't telling me what I'm supposed to do."

I'm playing through Borderlands 2 with the voice volume completely muted. I usually mute the music and play other music or podcasts over the game instead. There are unskippable cutscenes and situations where I have to stand around while NPCs complete their dialogue, but overall it works beautifully. Really all you need are quest markers and objectives.

not usually no . i generally play games for the story if its not something where its clearly just a game for mechanics sake . that said i do sorta zone out on heavy throw away fetch quest type dialog in some games these days or if its a non-voice acted CS i'll definitely just kinda skim in certain cases . its preetty rare tho.

I never skip the story in games, that's a good chunk of what I'm there for. I'll often skip audio if they have it written out though, one of my pet peeves is games that make you listen to the full voice lines. Games without full VO suit me just fine, I'd rather just read the lines than suffer through some hammy/laboured delivery that takes much longer.

My big takeaway from this has been that if I had worded the question differently, or limited the poll to a simple 'yes/no' and people were being honest with themselves, than "Yes" would be running away with it.

There does seem to be this sort of quiet consensus that reaches even beyond the GB forums that writing and voice work in games is generally not worth your time or energy to experience as presented. I don't necessarily disagree or anything, but it is... Interesting that the sentiment keeps popping up. I don't know if it really means anything, and obviously this doesn't apply to all games everywhere, but it is still kind of interesting to think about.

I’m curious about the skipping voiced dialogue crowd… given the ability would you do the same with a movie?

Depends!

Look, I love JRPGs, I love the Ace Attorney series, I even enjoy Assassin's Creed in spite of Ubisoft, but you know what all of those games have in-common? They often use 1000 words when 10 would have sufficed. (ESPECIALLY ACE ATTORNEY)

I just completed Triangle Strategy and it's one of my favorite games I've played in some time, but it RESTATES and re-summarizes events that JUST HAPPENED at the start of every chapter. Which is great if I've put the game down, or if it was a particularly huge chapter, but if I already know what's going to be said, I don't need to hear it.

Persona 5, probably my favorite game of the last 10 years, has a similar problem: there are points where the game just slams on the brakes so the party can talk about where they stand. I think that game has some of the best English voice acting I've heard, but if they're just re-stating what I already know: I'll HAPPILY read it, but I don't feel compelled to listen to every spoken line.

Put another way: no, because movies use dialog efficiently, and generally only take up 2 hours, as opposed to the 30+ hours a dialog-heavy videogame can go.