Some of the best known protagonists are silent here are ten of the best.
Honourable Mentions
Classic Sonic from Sonic Franchise
This was kinda added in to distinquish between the classic and modern Sonic and it's canon status is sketchy at best.
Amigo from Samba De Amigo
He speaks in music apparently.
10. Byuu from Bahamut Lagoon
Squaresoft's hidden RPG classic is a turn based strategy RPG, Byuu acts as the lead but surrounded by way more characters than most RPGs, Byuu is hardly a stand out.
9. Rookie from Halo 3 ODST
Now's one of those times, pays to be the strong silent type. A quote uttered by Dutch in the ODST spinoff, the Rookie ultimately ends up being the survivor among the team.
8. Chell from Portal
Valve like to make their protagonists silent but in Chell's case it's better to hear the dialogue from both GlaDOS and Wheatley.
7. Gordon Freeman from Half Life
Valve's arguably more famous silent protagonist, a no nonsense scientist who likes playing with physics to kill head crab zombies.
6. Sergei Dragunov from Tekken
Remains completely silent to the point of surprise when he utters as much as a word or a sentence. What's more hilarious is that singing is one of his hobbies.
5. Crash from Crash Bandicoot
Probably a more interesting case with this one as his actions and personality hint at Crash having communication disorders associated closely with Autism rather than an unexplained silence.
4. Link from Legend of Zelda
For someone who never utters a word, Link is surprisingly noisy for a so called Silent Protagonist, his constant grunts keep him away from number one.
3. Red from Pokemon
The Pokemon franchise ran with the idea that Red was a silent protagonist as early as Gold and Silver, in each game he's appeared since, even Pokemon Masters who give most of the Player Pokemon Trainers voices, remains a silent protagonist.
2. Crono from Chrono Trigger
Crono is an interesting case as he could easily be voiced if not for Chrono Trigger being a Snes game, yet there are many moments in the RPG that are way more effective without dialogue. The Dragon Tank being one, another is the first meeting with Lavos.
1. Doomguy from Doom
Proves to be way more expressive with his facial expressions rather than any voice and barely beats out Crono in that regard. Made unintentionally more hilarious when paired with Animal Crossing's Isabelle.
When you play a game do you think of what might happen if you fail? What happens if you ignore the obvious signs that your about to do something that can't be reversed? Well these games test that morality to the limit as we look at the Top Ten Most Testing Morality Games.
Honorable Mentions
Magic Knight Rayearth - Don't fight your friends even if you end up defeated, but as it's also an anime it's just a mention.
Ace Attorney - Your client will be in jail if you fail to defend them but there are second chances and you can save yourself the embarrassment of failure.
Fire Emblem - Your troops won't come back if they die, but this is optional in some releases and not as essential a gameplay mechanic as it used to be.
10. Elite Beat Agents/Ouendan
The concept of the following dance/singing tropes is that these singers and cheerleaders swoop down and do their thing to try and cheer up or save the troubled individual, this could be anything from lighthearted such as supporting a taxi driver while they drive a pregnant woman to hospital or something heavy like cheering up a little girl who just lost her father at Christmas and failure to complete the song successfully makes for a very sad ending so it weighs quite heavy on your heart strings.
9. Virtua Cop
The Rail Shooter is an outdated concept yet its still more or less used in arcades but the mechanic of shooting a civilian will cost you one of your lives makes you think twice about wildly shooting at everything and makes you pay attention to what your doing, so look before you shoot.
8. Goldeneye
Shooting games are the worst offenders when it comes to trigger happy attitudes but in classic game Goldeneye being too trigger happy will cost you the mission or worst your own life. Shoot a tank in Facility will make you choke to death in the gas, accidentally trigger one of the high powered explosives in Silo will cause instant death, letting your allies die will cost you the mission, blowing up an essential piece of equipment you fail the mission; you get the idea, look before you shoot all those soldiers.
7. Rhapsody A Musical Adventure
In this RPG the love of your life has been turned to stone so your mission is to go out and save him by gathering special stones from mystic guardians, to bad your actions could cost your allies their lives, actually outright kill the guardians, bring ruin to a kingdom and generally make you look like the worlds worst person. You can avoid all this but that depends on how much you pay attention to what's going on.
6. Bioshock
A classic case of whether you decide to kill or save a child; what should be a very easy choice to make, can end up making you look like the world's worst human being if you ignore the obvious just by the fact that you want your special powers quickly, patience and benevolence offer more rewards.
5. Trauma Center Under the Knife
Equally you don't need to be an expert to understand that if you fail your patient will die.
4. Pikmin
You crash land in a mysterious place and have the ability to control these little creatures who can help you escape their world and you have hundreds of them to play with, don't think of these creatures as expendable, your experience will be much smoother if you keep them alive, they aren't Lemmings you know.
3. Undertale
Most recent video game smash hit Undertale gives you the basic moral choice of choosing whether to fight or not. Going by instinct is easy but makes you feel like a villain for doing so and really punishes you for killing certain characters so be a little more conservative in your approach and you'll find a better ending.
2. Cannon Fodder
No matter the rank of the soldier, no matter how talented they are with a gun, if they die, they die and the poignant message it always gives is this: You can line up as many soldiers as you like, but all they do is replace the ones that are dead and Cannon Fodder makes you feel the more guilty when they tell you names of everyone who's died while more soldiers line up for you to send to an early grave, and remember this is the retro hard gaming era so they will die a lot.
1. Chrono Trigger
But the ultimate game for morality is Chrono Trigger, right from the beginning, your messing about at the fair could land you in jail later on, your failure to stop certain things in the past triggers changes that cannot be reversed so easily, humanity will be doomed if you can't stop Lavos. There are more scenarios in this game than you can imagine and all may lead to the same fate, choose your path wisely young Chrono, assuming your still alive by the end of the adventure, hope you won that replica doll of yourself.