Defined personality vs. Blank Slate
One of the big questions of this board is whether or not the main character of Cyberpunk 2077 will have a defined personality or not. This is interesting because Cyberpunk 2020 is notable for being an RPG which heavily focused on "roles" before with classes having a direct effect on how you interacted with people. There was the Rockerboy, Corporate, Solo, and others. It'd be cost-prohibitive and also probably ruin a lot of the game's fun to have everyone react to your character differently based on their role but some games had some decent playarounds with this. For example, Vampire: The Masquerade had people react you differently if you were a Malkavian, Nosferatu, and sometimes Toreador (with specific clans having specific dialogue).
The thing is that a lot of the strength of good writing for a game depends on you having a character who will react in a certain way to certain events. Shepard, Geralt, and Mike Thorton from their games are all well-defined in their roles enough that they can react from a series of choices presented to the player but all of them feel organic. For example, Geralt can be snarky, respectful, or pleasant to people but he's always Geralt. OTOH, that might not work as cyberpunk can and does have a history of very different sorts of people. Hawke from Dragon Age balanced things by having Aggressive, Respectful, and Sarcastic with Mike Thorton having something similar.
However, others may want more extreme variations like Star Wars: The Old Republic where Revan could be a homicidal psychopath and a saint with something inbetween. Voiceless protagonists have a reputation for being easier to mold but, even then, there's actually not that much difference (IMHO) because you're still choosing from 3-4 choices. It's just you can headcanon whatever inflections you want on the speech. This can even effect non-RPGs with Ajay from Far Cry 4 deliberately said to not have much personality by developers so people could project themselves. I felt that weakened the character, overall.
So, what's your preference? A more defined character or a more blank slate kind of character?
One of the big questions of this board is whether or not the main character of Cyberpunk 2077 will have a defined personality or not. This is interesting because Cyberpunk 2020 is notable for being an RPG which heavily focused on "roles" before with classes having a direct effect on how you interacted with people. There was the Rockerboy, Corporate, Solo, and others. It'd be cost-prohibitive and also probably ruin a lot of the game's fun to have everyone react to your character differently based on their role but some games had some decent playarounds with this. For example, Vampire: The Masquerade had people react you differently if you were a Malkavian, Nosferatu, and sometimes Toreador (with specific clans having specific dialogue).
The thing is that a lot of the strength of good writing for a game depends on you having a character who will react in a certain way to certain events. Shepard, Geralt, and Mike Thorton from their games are all well-defined in their roles enough that they can react from a series of choices presented to the player but all of them feel organic. For example, Geralt can be snarky, respectful, or pleasant to people but he's always Geralt. OTOH, that might not work as cyberpunk can and does have a history of very different sorts of people. Hawke from Dragon Age balanced things by having Aggressive, Respectful, and Sarcastic with Mike Thorton having something similar.
However, others may want more extreme variations like Star Wars: The Old Republic where Revan could be a homicidal psychopath and a saint with something inbetween. Voiceless protagonists have a reputation for being easier to mold but, even then, there's actually not that much difference (IMHO) because you're still choosing from 3-4 choices. It's just you can headcanon whatever inflections you want on the speech. This can even effect non-RPGs with Ajay from Far Cry 4 deliberately said to not have much personality by developers so people could project themselves. I felt that weakened the character, overall.
So, what's your preference? A more defined character or a more blank slate kind of character?