Creepy Monotone / Video Games

• The Chandelier from Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation.
• Conrad Marburg from Alpha Protocol meets this trope halfway from raspy and adds in a healthy dose of Evil Sounds Deep. Add in the "Psycho" Strings that seem to follow him around everywhere and the end result is rather sinister.
• BlazBlue:
  • The "final boss" in BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger's Arcade Mode is ν-13 (pronounced "nu-thirteen"), who is introduced with a creepy monotone and, yes, is an Emotionless Girl with an Evil AI who becomes Ax-Crazy around certain people. Like GLaDOS, ν-13 shares a voice actor with another character. She does drop the creepy monotone whenever Ragna the Bloodedge is around and uses a bright and cheery, almost babylike, voice with him. This is not an improvement.
  • Lambda-11 of BlazBlue: Continuum Shift shares the same voice actress as Nu and speaks in a creepy monotone as well, albeit in a slightly different tone.
• Nominal Hero Zer0 in Borderlands 2 speaks with very little emotion. He's probably the least "human" of the six Vault Hunters - even Krieg has desires beyond simply killing stuff (even if he's really bad at expressing them), but Zer0 is motivated solely by murdering people, and getting money to buy more effective tools for murdering people.
  tee hee hee
• Paul in Dark Seed II has a very monotonous voice when he's talked to outside his house.
• Vindicare Assassins from Dawn of War. No aggression. No fear. Just a flat monotone that sounds scarier than a Khorne Berserker bellowing "WHY AREN'T WE KILLING YET?"
• Day of the Tentacle:
  • Laverne speaks with a flat tone, and she's a creepy girl with something going on mentally.
  • Frighteningly enough, Ed talks with one when he's calm. Even when he's obviously furious, his vocal range doesn't change much at all.
• J.C. Denton and Adam Jensen, the protagonists of Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, respectively, sound very stoic. This was done intentionally so that the players can decide on how they feel. In the original game, secondary antagonist Walton Simons is a more straightforward example as he sounds almost completely devoid of any emotion at all save for the occasional hint of mild frustration. He's also not a very nice person.
• The Tranquil in Dragon Age: Origins - Mages who have undergone a sort of magical lobotomy and are now incapable of emotion. (Though examples exist demonstrating that "incapable of emotion" is not the same as "mindless drone".) The Sloth Demon also has one, as a creature born from and inspiring indifference and apathy.
  • Hespith, particularly when reciting her Apocalyptic Log: "First day, they come and catch everyone. Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat. Third day..." Considering the increasingly horrifying content of the poem, the monotone is especially unsettling.
  • First Enchanter Irving has a bit of this, though it makes him sound more like a tired old man rather than crazy.
• The Evil Army in the videogame Drakengard speaks like this, a side effect of the Big Bad's Mind Control, probably.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, this is a trait of Molag Bal, the Daedric Prince of Domination and Corruption. For much of the time, his tone doesn't change much while talking. However, he drops this trait and goes full-on Large Ham when he becomes entertained or enraged. Skyrim and Online provide great examples.
  • Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness in Oblivion's Shivering Isles expansion. Normally, he's rather charming and downright giggle-worthy with his fake-Scottish accent and habit of cheerily threatening life and limb (and mental integrity). However, when he suddenly becomes very quiet, his eyes narrow, and he speaks very, very softly, you're reminded that you really ought to be terrified of this guy.
• Galaxy Angel: Vanilla H is a downplayed example, as she always speaks in a subdued, monotone voice, due to requiring huge emotional control to use her Nanomachines for medical treatment. Unlike most examples, she seems to be aware of this trope and actually apologizes to Tact for it.
• In Fallout 4, this applies to the elite Coursers of the Institute, including possible companion X6-88. Although they look perfectly human, it becomes clear how inhuman they are after even a brief conversation. Such conversations usually involve them insulting the surface dwellers or threatening people in a tone that is at most only slightly flavored by mild annoyance, weary boredom, distant condescension, or vague curiosity. "Sincere respect" can be added to the list by X6-88 if the player proves a loyal and capable director for the Institute, at least.
  • One of the four voices that the Master in Fallout uses is a computerized voice that represents the cold, logical side of his personality, and seeing how his other voices are the result of different people fusing into his body, this probably comes from fusing himself with the computer system of the prototype Vault he's in.
• The village of genomes from Final Fantasy IX are said to be emotionless.
• Five Nights at Freddy's 2: During the minigames, you'll hear a crude monotone voice that sounds robotic. This voice is spelling out a different sentence depending on what minigame you're playing (Save Them, Help Them, and Save Him). "Them" and "Him" refer to the children that are about to be killed by a human.
• Half-Life:
  • The G-Man from the series is a variant of this, particularly in Half-Life 2. He speaks in semi-monotone but stresses the wrong words and pauses (and fails to pause) in all the wrong places. (ex. "Not that I wish to-imply that you have been... sleep-ing on the-job")
  • A version of this appears in the first Half-Life. Black Mesa's PA system is created via a sort of voice synthesizer that assembles pre-existing voice files into phrases. This is initially used as a generic announcer, but it is later taken under control of the enemy soldiers and used to threaten the protagonist himself.
  • The Combine announcer combines this with medical terminology: She/it sounds like she's/it's describing a medical procedure, not an urban counterinsurgency crackdown.
• Cortana from the eponymous level in Halo 3. Although most of her lines are anything but monotone she says, "This is UNSC AI Serial Number CTN 0452-9. I am a monument to all your sins." in a monotone with bonus points for also using Voice of the Legion vocalization.
• Hellsinker has a distinct, monotone "You will die here!" clip that is used in several instances:
  • Against Scarlet Queen in Segment 2 LEAD, if you unlock her Spirit Kernel form.
  • At the end of the Shrine of Farewell, if you've killed all four bosses within the time limit.
  • Against Rex Cavalier in Segment 7, as the final phase of his assault begins.
• Agent 47 from the Hitman series is a great example of this trope. A conversation with him would be like making friends with a Boa Constrictor; quiet and unnerving. When 47 is around death isn't far behind, his robotic personality is expected from a hitman of his legend.
• AM in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream averts this greatly, but near the end of the game when you enter his inner workings, the Ego component of his brain plays it straight. The other two computers he merged with, making up his Superego and, Id also avert this.
• A minor example, being slightly unsettling instead of a major warning sign, but in I Miss the Sunrise, Mr. Right and Mr. Left seem to speak in a robotic monotone, indicated by the fact that their sentences appear instantly instead of letter by letter.
• The Martians of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds speak like this. An exception is their trademark "ULLAAA!" from the musical, which can sound triumphant or sad depending on the situation.
• In the Kingdom Hearts series, nearly every single Organization XIII member talks like this at least once, with Saix being the most notable example.
  • And then most of it is dropped, while the rest is put into dissonance for the rage he unleashes during the fight with him.
  • But the best example comes from 358/2 Days, towards the end of the game, right before the fight against Xion. It then turns into a Voice of the Legion act-alike.
  "You're next, Roxas. I have to make you a part of me too."
  • In Kingdom Hearts, Ansem/Xehanort's Heartless speaks this way in his introductory scene on Destiny Islands and, later, in Hollow Bastion. He ditches it later to make way for ridiculously over-the-top semantics.
  • Xemnas' voice never has much emotion behind his droning voice, thanks to Paul St. Peter's acting. It's almost more disturbing than Saïx.
  "There's no such thing as light." (He says this while surrounding Sora and Riku in a Beam Spam.)
  • Young Xehanort in Dream Drop Distance is a particularly jarring case, as all other versions of the character are infamous for being Large Hams. Even Xemnas somehow manages to ham it up while monotone, but not this guy.
• A minor character in Knights of the Old Republic, an Iridorian, has one. Since the Iridorian is a Blood Knight who is motivated solely by the slaughter of his enemies, it makes him extremely unnerving for a character who appears only briefly and does nothing except stand in a bar and answer a couple of questions.
• Gordon Holloway from The Longest Journey speaks in a monotone due to having his soul separated from him, manifesting as the Chaos Vortex in Arcadia.
• The promo material for Mass Effect 2 features a geth named Legion speaking in this manner. It is absolutely terrifying when you hear him speaking on how the geth use fear in such a cold mechanical voice. Then you play the game and find out the promos lied to you, and Legion's voice just makes it adorable.
  Legion: We do not experience fear, though we understand its effect on you.
  • The Reapers speak this way as well, particularly Sovereign. Harbinger carries slightly more inflection but is still consistent in tone whether he is ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL or remarking on how irritating the protagonist is.
  "Shepard. You have become... an annoyance."
  • In Mass Effect 3, the Leviathan DLC has a mining facility speaking like this. This, along with the fact that they are unnaturally calm as Reapers attack their front door, are major hints that something is very wrong. It's also hinted that they've been speaking this way for ten years.
  • Downplayed with the Elcor and the Hanar, who speak this way due to their Starfish Language. Elcor naturally do not express emotion with their voices, but with subtle facial and scent cues that other races can't pick up on. Hanar actually "speak" with bioluminescence, so what you're hearing is their Translator Microbes turning that into something non-Hanar can understand.
• Max Payne, in both games. It's particularly striking in the first game, since the actor providing his likeness, Sam Lake, looks quite humorous and has a flamboyant outfit (leopard prints).
• In the Japanese dub of Metal Gear Solid, Gray Fox aka the Cyborg Ninja speaks like this. In fact, his voice actor was notorious for using this trope to great effect.
• This is how the protagonists know that something is wrong in the titular star system in the game Nova 9. They get a brief Distress Call that is cut off, then, shortly after, receive a message delivered in creepy monotone saying that everything is fine and to disregard the previous message.
• Persona 4:
  • While most of the Shadows of the Investigation Team speak in a similar (albeit taunting) tone as their counterparts, Teddie's shadow speaks in a very creepy, almost dead-sounding monotone. This was changed in the Updated Re-release when Teddie's VA was changed, and his Shadow developed a thundering bass voice.
  • Shadow Mitsuo has an even more lifeless voice than Shadow Teddie's original voice. In this case, it's heavily symbolic - Mitsuo is such an Empty Shell of a human being that their Shadow, the embodiment of all their inner thoughts and desires, barely exists.
• Portal proudly sports GLaDOS, who has a sort of musically random inflection, but in a very mechanical way. This is emphasized when she uses a word or phrase more than once in a short period of time. Also, "Wheeee..."
  • The turrets also have the same type of voice (and the same voice actress), but with a more cute than creepy inflection (which doesn't say much).
  • You spend so much of the game listening to that voice, right from the very start, that when you destroy GLaDOS' Morality Core and she switches from robotic monotone to an emotive, fluent female voice, it's actually far creepier than the monotone, because GLaDOS talking like a normal person is simply not right.
• Psychonauts:
  • The Milkman Conspiracy level has government agents with the flimsiest of disguises spout monotone one-liners to maintain their cover.
  • Anyone who gets their brain stolen speaks with a flat drone and is only able to utter lines about "TV" and "hacky-sack".
  • Vernon Tripe speaks with a nasal monotone. It isn't creepy by itself, but it causes Raz to momentarily mistake Vernon for one of the brainless campers when encountering him in the main lodge.
• In Puyo Puyo Tetris, Jay and Elle, who are typically energetic Trickster Twins, have an alternate voice that has them speaking in a dull monotone to invoke Creepy Twins.
• Aki Zeta-5 and Chairman Yang in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat: You don't want to hang around The Monolith Fighters, but there are moments where their Creepy Monotone can be quite memorable.
• StarCraft gives us the Ghost unit.
  • Abathur never really changes that robotic tone of his. (Though this trope gets flipped on its head in one scene when Abathur's Berserk Button is hit.)
• The Many speak this way in System Shock 2. They have multiple voices (an electronically-pitched rumble, a whispering masculine voice, and a nearly singsong feminine voice) and one or two of them sometimes have inflection, but the majority of it is in a serene monotone. "How can you choose cold steel over the splendor of flesh?" The contrast between the Many's monotone and SHODAN's stuttering and wildly varying inflection and pitch makes for one of the creepiest aural dichotomies the gaming world has to offer.
  • Also, the Many-controlled AI, Xerxes (who resembles HAL 9000 much more than SHODAN): "Decompression in five seconds. We regret any inconvenience." He is also quite dissonantly serene; he announces workplace accidents, the number of shopping days until Christmas, meal times, and security breaches in the same tone as the freaky messages programmed into him by the Many.
  • The original System Shock also had a generic voice announcer on Citadel Station that spoke in this manner, alongside SHODAN herself.
• Sophie in Tales of Graces normally speaks in something of a monotone anyway, but goes to creepy when Pascal brings up the idea of Richard eating royal crablettes. "Royal crablettes... royal crablettes..."
• The animated Statues in Thief: Deadly Shadows. They have one purpose only and, as a result, come across as rather single-minded. "A noise and find and crush and kill and crush and kill..."
• The Fallen Child in Undertale uses this for creepy effects since every other character at least has a form of Voice Grunting.
• Warzone 2100: "Your attacks upon us will not go unpunished. You are in contravention of the New Paradigm. Message ends."
• Algalon of World of Warcraft, up until he loses his cool and admits his convictions may have been in error. He'll unleash hell on you before that happens, though.
  • The Old God C'thun also speaks like this whenever his voice is heard in his raid, treating players to creepy whispers such as 'You are already dead.' and 'You will betray your friends.'

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