For instance, Assassin’s Creed Origins had subtitles turned off by default and 60% of players turned them on. And in games that had subtitles turned on by default, only 10% turned them off.
Few reasons why I turn on subtitles:
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sometimes the dialogue is kind of boring and I just want to read and hit “next line”
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sometimes it gives clues I wouldn’t hear like “hunter growling” or “witch sobbing” in left 4 dead.
sometimes the dialogue is kind of boring and I just want to read and hit “next line”
Yup. Cut scenes are boring. Most dialogue is pretty meh. Just let me get past it so I can do stuff again.
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I play with them on.
It’s not often that I can devote 100% of my attention to a game enough to play with the volume at cinematic levels and hear everything the way the devs intended
100% THIS. I would love to be able to play that way but reality means it doesn’t happen all the time, and subtitles don’t really have a downside to just leave on.
I’ve only ever actively noticed terrible audio balance. Combine that with a shitty rear facing built in tv speaker, the air conditioner because it’s 90° in fall, and me trying not to shake down the walls with sudden explosions, I’ll never hear whateverthefuck is being said. And so often that voice stuff is important, since signposting in AAA games isn’t always perfect,
I’m deaf, so if I cannot skip cut scenes, I’d prefer them on.
I never play with subtitles because I end up just reading them instead of looking at the animation. Obviously it’s important to have good subtitles available for accessibility though.
I prefer them on, always.
The mixing in many games often makes me miss a specific word, and it’s distracting trying to catch everything said without a helpful subtitle bridge to do the lifting for me.
I’ve tried without and the audio balancing isn’t always great, on FF16 Clive is hard to hear because his pitch is so deep I miss nuances or words completely.
Also growing up with games before voices were normalized. Habits die hard
I’ve played with subtitles on ever since Left 4 Dead, where you would get audio cues that would be too quiet to hear sometimes.
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I find it hard to ignore the text as my eyes always seem to want to gravitate towards it, so prefer to turn it off so I’m more focused on the scene itself. So yeah, I usually turn em off.
Most of the time i play jrpg’s and i want it to be japanese dubbed. But my japaneses isn’t good enough yet, so i turn subtitles on of course…But i have the feeling you are talking about something different.
