Personally, I would like to hear contemporary English without neologisms and with “old fashioned” words where those are appropriate.
For example see the game Gothic III. Set in fantasy pseudo-medieval times, the contemporary English speech (but without modern slangs or “21st century words”) didn’t break the immersion a bit for me.
I’m a Korean. I want you to make this game that is localized several languages especially Korean!!
Just I want subtitle. not dubbing.
I’d like to have a choice between for example “Modern English” and “Ancient English” ; or for my case “Modern German” and “Ancient German” I know this would cause more work but it would make the game better 
I prefer good ol’ English. The Shakespearian touch is pretty awesome, too.
Putting the money on a Czech version would only please a minority I’m pretty sure, it’d be way more accessible and enjoyable for most people if its in English. Thats what I figure anyway.
If a player is meant to understand, then using a modern language makes sense. On the other hand, using a few easily understood localisms of the period would add to the atmosphere, such as words indicating social status and relative levels of respect. For example, a medieval Peasant saying to a Noble something like ‘I am your servant, my Lord’ had very diferent connotations to the same words used today by a butler to his boss in London. So, perhaps, we could use the local words for ‘servant’ and ‘Lord’ to remind ourselves of the radically different and very hierarchical society in which the game is set. I’d also like some juicy insults, jokes and ribaldry, and unusual metaphors translated from the Czech or German of the ‘Bohemians’ to add flavour and amusement to the game without breaking the immersion. PS I’m an actor who speaks with a British accent and would love to be audiitioned for a voice part if such is being considered.
I think there are a lot of good ideas here. Ultimately it is the atmosphere that is created that matters, a creative mix of speech from different periods used to create the impression in the modern day gamer’s mind that they are in historical Bohemia could be the answer.
Sounds simple, but I wouldn’t want to be the one to try to figure out how to implement it…
Here I agree. I must admit, watching the Live Stream, the Shakespearian accent did grow on me (especially during the scene with the nobles in the castle keep). This might not be too bad if they got good voice actors (since live stream only showed place-holders). Although, the more modern voice style (which, I think, Warhorse are currently pursuing) might also work.
As for foreign languages, I disagree. I’ve heard many times on this thread that money won’t be a problem, and they will likely be recorded (for sale in other countries) anyway. So adding these to the English version of the game will not be “putting money” on a “minority”. One concern, however, may be time (since foreign-dubbed games are often released a little bit later than the original English).
Watching the livestream, I think people unfamiliar with the speech would get used to it very quickly. The acting and some of the word choice was at points a bit stiff or exaggerated, but much of it was good. I noticed the hero say “thanks”, which seemed out of place.
Yes, please no contemporary short forms, such as “Thanks”, “Ok”, …
except assassins creed’s atmosphere was absolutely awful. it felt like a game, a very childish and non-serious game to me. part of that was the keanu reeves like accent of the protagonist
OLD English please - the one in the livestream was pretty nice already, be it accurate or not, it gave a great “feel” of being authentic (and that matters, doesn´t it?)-
I understood everything pretty well, though English isn´t my native language.
why not a toggle in the settings to allow for modern or older styles of speech.
I understood everything perfectly fine when I wasn’t laughing at it. The Old English/ Shakespearian take was fine in respect to being comprehensible, but all I could think of were poorly done Shakespeare plays and Renaissance fairs. By the end of the Livestream, I was more immersed, but it was still difficult to take seriously. I’d be good with a more modern English or period-appropriate Czech with subtitles.
the corporal character’s dialog is i think a good model or example on how the rest of the dialog can be written. old and obscure terms like churl, mayhaps and granmercy is used, but no jarring sentences. phrases are fluid and spoken naturally.
maybe it has to do with the particular direction he was under or maybe his skill and talent. but i do notice the phrasing and diction was slightly more modern.
I think the old language felt forced, and gave it a staged feel. I think the most important thing is that the dialogue feels natural, and that the audience feel the impact of the wording. We may quickly be able to learn what certain words mean, and how the word order works. But language is a lot more than that.
We haven’t experienced old english first hand. Of course we have heard it occasionally, but prolonged exposure is needed to understand the finer nuances of a language. A lot of the details in the voice acting would get lost. Even if you did find someone, who could make it sound natural.
I’m not saying you should go full-on swagger-underground-twitter culture. Just tone the old down to a bearable level. I think going with Shakespeare was very distracting, and constantly pulled me out of the immersion, because I had to focus on the extra step of understanding.
I have nothing against other languages. I’m from Denmark, so I am familiar with subtitles. It would be really cool to have the characters talk their own language. (I always watch movies in the original language). Just know that it’s a lot harder to convey a message in writing, than in speech.
I may be a bit biased here in my opinion, but I really, really liked the archaic/Shakespearean style of English you used. I study Old and Middle English at University so even though I would love for the game to be in Middle English I think this is a bad idea from a business point of view and it would be hard to understand for a lot of people.
I do think it’s a great idea to take an archaic/Shakespearean English approach though if you do decide to do this please please do not half-ass it. Do it and do it properly or it will ruin the game. So either go with proper Shakespearean English (even though I know it’s not period correct) or put the game in German or Czech as I speak German anyway and playing the game in Czech with English subs wouldn’t bother me at all. The downside to this of course is the inability to use famous English actors like Sean Bean etc.
I have faith in you guys at the studio and I’m sure whatever option you choose you will do it well. 
Because then they would have to get the voice actors to do two takes of everything which would cost a lot more and detract from other features of the game.
Your idea is good, but does not work in well at all in a business situation.
Sorry to be pedantic, but Old English is the language Beowulf was written in and one I highly doubt you would understand (not because of your level of intelligence, rather simply due to the difference between modern English and old English) Also the English used in the video was close to Shakespearean English which technically is the beginning of Modern English, which was around the 17th century aprrox. In this time they would have spoken middle English would be very hard to understand for those untrained.
I’m not trying to be mean, rather just throw in a little fact.
I would prefer old style English. Some accents are even better. Immersion is really important to this game.
I’m German, but I’m usually sceptical about German localizations, most German voice acting is mediocre and even subs I prefer in English (chances are higher they’re well made).
In any way, I’d play in the language matching the lips. If it happens to be Czech, so be it (subs for me then). This would be great actually.
If English is the way, I’d prefer an easy to understand version without apparent modernisms (i.e. early 20th century), as many posters before me. No fake medieval “ye olde shoppe” crap please. That’s as cliché as crouching for stealth.
Latin for the clergy is a nice touch. Talking about immersion: an actual blacksmith’s son wouldn’t get Latin so it’s a good thing the player doesn’t either. Instead of eavesdropping, he’d have to ask the guys in question directly.
By the way, according to the Internet, most common people in Bohemia at that time spoke Czech, while upperclass folks spoke German (up until ~25 years earlier, Germans were the majority in Bohemia, but numbers declined from there).
To have this reflected in the game, well, I don’t know - a commoner like our hero wouldn’t understand German, would he? Unless you make the language barrier a plot point, I’d rather vote for the setting to take place in an all-Czech (or all-German) area. As opposed to him (us) magically understanding everything.
