Imagine playing a video game that uses your speech and your words to command your character’s every action. Voice-controlled games may seem like a Jetsons-level fantasy, but that style of gameplay is an increasingly present reality in the gaming world. It’s a fact: controls as we know them are on course to change: speech-driven games are gaining more space every day and becoming more and more diverse as they gain popularity.
And those who think that the modality is expensive and exclusive are wrong, because these games are not limited to video game consoles. There are many options for computers, smartphones (Android and iOS) and even for digital assistants such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. The idea, according to testimonials from companies that produce these games, is to make them increasingly accessible, especially for older people and people with physical or visual disabilities. After all, speech recognition allows users to have a deeper integration with the devices and with other players in the same niche – a trend that is already emerging through servers created to connect players by voice, as occurs with Discord.
What most enchants in this universe, it is worth mentioning, is that there are voice games for all tastes and more and more options in Portuguese – minimum requirement for the inclusion of players who are not used to foreign languages . Another advantage is that voice-activated games are often light and fast, which also allows the user not to be stuck for a long time and, consequently, be free to perform other activities, such as washing dishes or walking on a treadmill – all this while playing and having fun.
Learn some of the more famous and fun voice-controlled games
One of the most acclaimed games released for voice control was Bot Colony, developed by IA North Side Inc. for Microsoft Windows. The official release for users took place on 2021, and in this sci-fi story, players find themselves in a technological future, where robots have become ubiquitous assistants in human society. Technology recognizes natural speech patterns rather than limiting itself to excess command phrases strictly rigid or limited, so that players can command the robots through the use of their own words. The user will therefore need to control robots, vehicles or cranes to complete the missions, and can advance the story by trading in a bazaar, talking to a robotic waiter in the restaurant or investigating a crime. Bot Colony allows the player to discover the story organically, through conversation-based interactions, which are mediated by voice-to-text and text-to-speech solutions, integrated into the dialogue channel.
Another game that uses this technology is Tom Clancy’s EndWar, which, advertised as an RTS (acronym for Real Time Strategy – Real Time Strategy), allows players to control it completely with their voices. With software that recognizes some sentences – which, in turn, were structured in a conversion tree – the game makes fans feel like a brilliant general in a war room, within a modern urban combat scenario. Developed by Ubisoft, Tom Clancy’s EndWar was released on 2000 and is available for Playstation 3 platforms , Xbox 281 and PC.