History Main / HeroicMime

** ''Ys III: Wanderers From Ys'' gives Adol many lines of his own in the original version. The new age remake ''VideoGame/YsTheOathInFelghana'' changed that to bring it more in line with the rest of the series. In the Platform/PCEngine CD version, where most characters are voiced, he only speaks in text.

* ''VideoGame/{{Timeshift}}'' features a totally silent, FeaturelessProtagonist. To further add to the immersion, the game has an UnbrokenFirstPersonPerspective up until the end of the game. In an interesting case of WhatMightHaveBeen, earlier builds for the game had a fully voiced protagonist- until the devs got so fed up with the voice actor that they made the Time Traveler mute!

* Isaac Clarke in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' speaks little except in anguished screams of pain or grunts/yells of exertion while using melee attacks. He does, however, take notes on his mission objectives in the main menu. According to the dev team, the debate between this approach and having Isaac speak continued right up to the game's launch. The only time he speaks proper is when [[spoiler:he yells a distorted "''Come on!''" at the end when the door to the shuttle's bridge is locked.]]

** Isaac drops this in all subsequent games in the franchise, the dev team having apparently decided that the Heroic Mime trope wasn't working out very well. The remake of the first game even plans to have Isaac talk.

** ''VideoGame/SoulHackers2'' also averts this trope with Ringo, who's is as chatty as other party members.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'': For the most part, your entire party has no lines, and given their ambiguity, you won't really notice or care. However, reading the description for the Rat's Tail yields a pretty funny conversation between them, where they almost consider throwing it away. "No!! Don't do that!!"

** With the obvious exception of the MMO games, however, the series has averted this trope. Even Firion from 2 and Luneth from 3 were speaking characters from their first appearance.

** In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestXI'' the main character never speaks -- [[spoiler:Except in a few flashback scenes when you see him as a young boy]] -- there's even an option to turn off his VoiceGrunting -- though not much is made about it during the game. It is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] however in the short character bios that appear in the loading screens. Cole, a young boy who idolizes the main character, is said to have attempted the "strong and silent type" act. [[spoiler:Similar to ''Dragon Quest V'', you also meet the hero's younger self thanks to time travel, and he talks to you and his father in the brief moment you see him.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}'': Besides grunting, heavy breathing and the occasional screaming, Miles does actually speak, even when directly spoken to. The same goes for Waylon in the Whistleblower DLC. However, they both take detailed notes about what they're experiencing as they progress through the asylum, which is how their personalities show themselves.

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}'': Besides grunting, heavy breathing and the occasional screaming, Miles does not actually speak, even when directly spoken to. The same goes for Waylon in the Whistleblower DLC.

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}'': Besides grunting, heavy breathing and the occasional scream, Miles does not actually speak, even when directly spoken to.

* ''VideoGame/Splatoon1'' and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' both [[LampshadeHanging bring up the protagonist being silent]] during their respective single player campaigns. At the start of each, Cap'n Cuttlefish (in ''Splatoon'' and ''Octo Expansion'') and Marie (in ''Splatoon 2'') say something and expect a response from the player, but receive none as indicated by the dialogue that follows (mostly ellipsis, and Marie going "ahem"). Afterwards, they both go "I'll take your silence as a yes".

** Inverted in the UsefulNotes/WiiWare port: [[spoiler:Curly Story gives Curly Brace several lines where Quote had none previously. Quote is still mostly mute (scenes involving him have Curly speak for him), except for one situation in the Plantation; performing a sidequest required to access the BonusLevelOfHell actually gives Quote a couple of lines.]]

** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'': Played straight in the original Famicon version, averted in the English UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem, where Erdrick yells for a kidnapped couple to run away from Robbin' 'Ood. Also, your party members, although there's one clear aversion: after returning from Gaia's Navel, the party member in the second position will have a comment/question about your experience, dependent on their class/gender. If you sent a party member to the dungeon and put the Hero in the second position, he/she will have Visible Silence instead.

** ''Ys III: Wanderers From Ys'' gives Adol many lines of his own in the original version. The new age remake ''VideoGame/YsTheOathInFelghana'' changed that to bring it more in line with the rest of the series. In the UsefulNotes/PCEngine CD version, where most characters are voiced, he only speaks in text.

** Red is similarly quiet in VideoGame/PokemonMasters, while all other trainers you meet, including other past protagonists like Rosa from Black/White, are fully voiced. Even his female counterpart Leaf is fully voiced and distinct from him, reinforcing that being silent is Red's actual character. On one occasion, another character complains about Red's refusal to talk during a trainer battle, resulting in Red's only line of actual dialogue... in which he says his Pokémon can already understand him perfectly, so talking is completely pointless.

* VideoGame/SoulHackers2 averts this trope with Ringo.

** In ''VideoGame/YsIXMonstrumNox'' both Adol and [[spoiler:the second Adol in the prison]] are silent, VoiceGrunting aside. However, when they meet, [[spoiler:the fake one speaks, while the real one doesn't. The fake one then gets absorbed, and then Adol]] proceeds to remain silent for the rest of the game. [[spoiler:Atra Nox Philius, Adol's godlike evil clone]], however, averts it completely.

* While all the characters in ''Potion Permit'' [[PictorialSpeechBubble speak in emoticons]] when expressing their feelings, [[PlayerCharacter The Chemist]] exclusively does this because they don't have written dialogue like the others.

** In ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'', Matthew is as silent as his father and uncle, with ''lots'' of LampshadeHanging. Also like his uncle, the American version makes [[PrecisionFStrike one noticable exception]] late in the game. Though we're not told exactly [[SymbolSwearing what he said]].

* ''VideoGame/BlackTheFall'': The PlayerCharacter is a worker in an [[CommiLand unnamed country rules by the Communist Regime]]. From the beginning of his journey to the end, he never says a word.

* The main character of ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' doesn't speak throughout the game. This is highly relevant to the plot: [[spoiler: like all the vessels, they ''can't'' speak. This gives away their true nature to several characters who are in the know, though the player doesn't discover their true nature until quite late in the game.]]

* ''VideoGame/MOAstray'' has MO, a slime. MO is obviously incapable of speech, so the story is entirely narrated by The Voice, and sometimes other characters like the AI Dylan. [[spoiler: Until the end, when they, in their ascended state, are able to say "You are wrong, this isn't what you wanted".]]

* Classic Sonic who is reintroduced from ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' onwards, due to the fact he never spoke in the Genesis games.[[note]]Although that was due to said games having no dialogue at all outside of the stories presented in the manuals and supplementary materials like comic, in which he ''does'' speak. So everyone's silent in them[[/note]] Modern Sonic never shuts up, which makes seeing them both converse in cutscenes a little weird. Many characters do lampshade hanging with this when trying to get the mime to talk.

* Classic Sonic in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'', due to the fact he never spoke in the Genesis games.[[note]]Although that was due to said games having no dialogue at all outside of the stories presented in the manuals (in which he ''does'' speak), so everyone's silent in them[[/note]] Modern Sonic never shuts up, which makes seeing them both converse in cutscenes a little weird. Many characters do lampshade hanging with this when trying to get the mime to talk.

* None of the protagonists of the VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys series speak during gameplay, though [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 Jeremy]] and [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3 the Fazbear's Fright Guard]] will have audible heavy breathing at times. It's averted with [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys4 The Child]] and [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation "Eggs Benedict"]], as the Child has text boxes in the between-nights cutscenes and Eggs gets a short voiced monologue at the end of the game, [[spoiler: swearing to come after [[BigBad his father]] for what he'd done]].

* Dane, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/TheQuietMan'', never speaks. In this case, it's justified because he's deaf and communicates via sign language.

** In ''Videogame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' and ''Videogame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', [[ProfessionalKiller The Dark Brotherhood]], should the player join the brotherhood, or even interact with the members, clients, and marks, the player can shoose to be silent, with the appropriate response by the one that's spoken to.

* ''VideoGame/{{Infested}}'': The player character, thanks to the lack of a talk button and no things that would want to talk to him anyway. He can mumble to himself, though.

One common variation of this is to suggest that the main character actually does speak, we just can't hear them or see their text boxes. [[SilentBob However, the other characters in the game can, and we can sometimes infer what was said from their reactions]]. It helps that such characters, when presented dialogue choices, the choices are full, comprehensible dialogues instead of simply "Yes" or "No" answers.