“Hey! Listen!” — what game companions taught us about talking, and about shutting up

We build one of these. Companion by AI Exodus makes an AI voice companion that reads the player's screen with local OCR and talks back in character, for WoW, Fortnite and AION 2. It speaks on game events, it has a chattiness setting, and it never touches the controls. Game designers made each of those decisions for us years ago.

Navi: a cursor that got a voice

Navi, the fairy in Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD, N64, 1998), was not meant to be a character. Yoshiaki Koizumi designed her as "a ball of light with wings" because the hardware could not draw a fairy; the name is short for "Fairy Navigation System". She was the focal point of Z-targeting and changed colour to signal a threat. Shigeru Miyamoto said she was "purposefully designed to provide simple advice, due to limited developer time", which is why she repeats herself, and why "Hey! Listen!" became the byword for a nagging helper.

The repetition was a budget, not a personality. Eiji Aonuma still defends her: "Going on an adventure by yourself is lonely and dull… it's hard to imagine Ocarina of Time without communication with Navi." A companion with few lines and many triggers will nag; the fix is more lines or fewer triggers.

Fi: a fix that took ten years

Fi, the spirit of the Goddess Sword in Skyward Sword (Wii, November 2011), offered hints, enemy analysis and technical commentary. Reception was predominantly negative: she "hurt the pace or made the game more annoying to play". Tantalus's Switch remaster in July 2021 made "many of Fi's hints now optional": a settings-menu fix, a decade late. Our equivalent is the chattiness setting, and the player should hold that dial from the first day.

Elizabeth: never cost the player anything

Irrational Games wrote hard rules for Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite (2K, 2013; voiced by Courtnee Draper). She needs no protection and cannot die. She finds ammunition, health and salts and tosses them to you. She positions herself so she never blocks your movement or your fire. Critics called her AI "downright ingenious" and the Booker–Elizabeth bond "the heart and soul" of the game. The rule under the character: a companion must never cost the player anything. For a voice over someone else's game, that means no hand on the controls and no talking over the moment that matters.

Alyx and Ellie: comment on what just happened

Alyx Vance in Half-Life 2 (Valve, 2004; Merle Dandridge) never blocks a door, keeps quiet in firefights, and remarks on what you just did. Ellie in The Last of Us (Naughty Dog, 2013; Ashley Johnson) is ignored by enemies in stealth so she never becomes an escort problem. In both, speech is triggered by events, not by a timer. That is the whole case for reading the screen: a companion that can see what happened can speak to it, and stay silent otherwise.

BT-7274: give the player lines

In Titanfall 2 (Respawn/EA, 28 October 2016), BT-7274 (Glenn Steinbaum, opposite Matthew Mercer as Jack Cooper) gets dialogue choices that let "players bond with the Titan without using any cutscene". Respawn steered between Optimus Prime and WALL-E cuteness, aiming for "a balance between making it a lovable partner and a 20-foot-tall war machine": a voice that is "robotic and calm" against Cooper's enthusiasm. Two things to copy: the conversation runs both ways, so the player has lines too; and the register is set against the player's, not matched to it. When the player is excited, calm is the better partner.

Mimir: fill the travel time, then yield

Santa Monica Studio's God of War (PS4, 20 April 2018) had few NPCs, so it hung a talking head from Kratos's belt. Mimir (Alastair Duncan), "the smartest man alive", was added to deliver lore, hints and banter; his boat-travel stories pause for combat and resume afterwards. Atreus (Sunny Suljic) does the other half: arrows on a dedicated button, distracting weaker enemies, and calling out threats the tight camera hides.

Ghost: tone is a product decision

Bungie shipped Destiny in 2014 with Peter Dinklage as the Ghost and, with The Taken King in 2015, recast the part with Nolan North. The studio treated a companion's voice as something it could revisit after launch. Tone is a decision, sometimes made twice.

Claptrap and GLaDOS: annoying needs a frame

Claptrap in Borderlands (Gearbox, 2009) is annoying by design; GLaDOS in Portal (Valve, 2007; Ellen McLain) and Wheatley in Portal 2 (2011; Stephen Merchant) are written to needle you. It works because the game is the frame. A voice over someone else's game is a guest, and guests do not get to be annoying on purpose.

Two footnotes. Apple TV+'s Murderbot (2025, RT 96%) is a security construct that hacked its governor module and would rather watch soap operas than talk to the humans it guards; Companion (2025, RT 93%) turns on who holds the phone that controls Iris. Speak less, and let the player hold the dial.

The checklist

• Speak on events, not timers. Alyx and Ellie comment on what the player just did; Navi changed colour when a threat appeared. If nothing happened, say nothing.
• Give the player the dial on day one. Fi's hints became optional ten years late. A chattiness setting belongs in the first release.
• Never cost the player anything. Elizabeth cannot die and never blocks a shot. A voice companion should not touch the controls or talk over the moment that matters.
• Yield, then resume. Mimir's stories pause for combat and pick up afterwards. Quiet in the fight; finish the thought later.
• Pick a register, and be willing to change it. Claptrap and GLaDOS had whole games built around them; Bungie recast the Ghost after a year. A guest voice gets neither luxury.