Ever since The Fast and The Furious came out (followed a couple years later by Need For Speed Underground), racing games seem to insist on adding stories, dialogue, and cutscenes. Unfortunately, the voicework and storytelling in racing games has seemingly only gotten worse, and it wasn’t good (or necessary) to begin with. I’ve played the Horizon series since its debut on PC with Horizon 3, and it definitely has not bucked this cringe-inducing trend.
When starting FH5, I went thru the menus, and received a brief glimmer of hope when I saw that the voice slider goes to zero this time around (it bottomed out at 1 in 3 and 4, IIRC). That glimmer faded the moment I actually started the game, and was barraged by yet another case of obnoxious NPCs telling me nothing important or entertaining. My poor keyboard’s mute button has been getting abused since then, as I sit idle waiting for the subtitles to disappear, my only indication as to whether the cringe is gone. This, combined with un-skippable cutscenes throughout the game, brings back to mind a refrain all too often uttered in racing games these days:
SHUT UP AND LET ME DRIVE.
I want to hear engines and road noise. I want to hear ambience. I want to hear music (MY music, mind you- thankfully, the series’ questionable soundtrack IS fully mutable this time around). But I do not want to, or need to, hear mostly-faceless NPCs yammering on about how cool everything is. I’m drifting thru switchbacks in a custom MX5; flying over hills in a 6-wheel Mercedes truck; rocketing down highways in a variety of supercars that would be the envy of even the most prolific car collectors- I KNOW HOW COOL IT IS. Shut your incessant yap-holes.
So basically, yeah- skippable cutscenes and mutable dialogue would make this game immeasurably more enjoyable, by letting us get back to what we came here for- driving.