French VO missing for months — we need answers

Von_Zalius · November 27

Hello @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno

I hope you are doing well and you are all having a cheerfull Thanksgiving.

Like many others, I’m once again asking for information regarding the French voice-over for the most recent updates.

It has now been several months since this issue has affected the French-speaking community. This is especially frustrating given that many of us purchased this year’s pass without knowing that the updates would ship without French dubbing.
On top of that, the problem remained throughout the Writhing Wall event, a limited-time event that will never return — meaning we were unable to experience it in our own language.
This makes the issue both significant and genuinely impactful.

I fully understand that technical or organizational problems can happen — it’s part of the nature of live-service games, and this could have been entirely forgiven.
Unfortunately, what is much harder to overlook is the complete lack of communication on the matter.

At the moment, we have no information at all regarding the scope of the issue:

What are the reasons behind the missing voice-over?

Will the French dubbing for the last two updates be released one day?

Will this problem affect the upcoming updates as well?

Is French voice-over still planned for the future of the game?

How long must we wait before we can hope for a solution — or at least an update?

I have tried multiple times to get answers to these questions, without success.
With next year’s announcements approaching in a few months, I honestly don’t know what to expect for the future of the game. Without any communication, the French community has no way of knowing whether the upcoming DLCs will even include dubbing.

I trust your team, and I know this year has been particularly difficult for the studio. You have my full support and appreciation.
But we truly need some communication on this topic, even if it’s just a brief reply to this post.

Wishing the whole team a great week, and thank you again for a game that I deeply enjoy.

mouton · December 7

It seems Bethesda’s latest expansion for Fallout 76 is suffering from the same curse. It cannot be a coincidence - it may look like there’s been a deliberate shift to stop including localized voice-overs, possibly as a cost-saving measure ?

Al_Ex_Andre · December 7

We already, as french people, suffer from a server in which we have to speak in english in chat. (I know it's considered a given for some now, but it's still a problem to me, even if it will remain as it)

So no french VO, and translations missing, is not making the game feels great in 2025.

As a note.

(edit: whoops, understandable post now I guess...)

Ei8htba11 · December 8

Replying to offer support and bump the thread

licenturion · December 8

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

MATH_COW · December 8

Another post Zenimax will ignore.

Last'One · December 8

MATH_COW wrote: »

Another post Zenimax will ignore.

Why not? What makes this post different from the rest?

OP complains about voice-over, I complain about the state of the game, others complain about balance, others about class identity, others about how subclassing ***** the whole game, and some even complain about "Why nerf HA just to sell Arcanist with a 400k HA beam cleave. (At least with HA we have to hold the button for 2 seconds… Cleave does it for 4 seconds with just one click.)

So… everyone complains. What did ZoS do?

MATH_COW · December 8

Last'One wrote: »

MATH_COW wrote: »

Another post Zenimax will ignore.

Why not? What makes this post different from the rest?

OP complains about voice-over, I complain about the state of the game, others complain about balance, others about class identity, others about how subclassing ***** the whole game, and some even complain about "Why nerf HA just to sell Arcanist with a 400k HA beam cleave. (At least with HA we have to hold the button for 2 seconds… Cleave does it for 4 seconds with just one click.)

So… everyone complains. What did ZoS do?

Because the Content Pass was supposed to be fully voiced as show in the description of the game (check the steam Content Pass 2025 page) but we only got 50% voiced.

So french community buy something we did not received and for now get absolute zero communication about that issue and that's not normal. We get scam. It's not excatly the same as complaining about balance. It's asking to get what we payed for.

But they will not say anything, it's been months a lot of us made post to get answers. The only reaction I got from them was moderators removing some of my comment for "bashing" which wasn't. I wasn't insulting or saying anything bad, I was just saying the conclusion I made after seeing all our post being ignored and the fact we already payed anyway.

TheSherryOnTop · December 8

licenturion wrote: »

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

While I can understand this (and I do it myself with series and movies), I prefer to have everything dubbed in a language that I understand (easier). I'm not a French native speaker, but I do play the game in French. The writhing wall event was a pain due to lack of translation. I'm used to have the characters sound in a certain way and a random russian sounding Razum-dar was throwing me out of immersion. My companion speaking French, while everyone else in the zone speaks English did not help either.

Besides, the game is advertised as having multiple language options and as a paying user I should get what I payed for. Which was not the case with the writhing wall event (which as the OP has written was a one time event).

valenwood_vegan · December 8

Clearly they're choosing to avoid engaging the community on this; I'd suggest that folks who feel they did not get the product that was advertised consider exercising their rights as consumers at this point.

scrappy1342 · December 8

zos has had more than enough time and opportunities to at the very least say "hey, sorry, this is what happened. this is what we are doing/trying to do."

scrappy1342 · December 8

licenturion wrote: »

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

from what i understand, it's not just the voice acting. a lot of the translation is missing also. and there has been zero attention from zos on the french forums. not everyone who plays in french can understand english, so they probably aren't involved on this forum at all

Rohamad_Ali · December 8

This language stuff should be basic quality of life pre checks before patch deployment. You have a good reason to complain.

Al_Ex_Andre · December 8

scrappy1342 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

from what i understand, it's not just the voice acting. a lot of the translation is missing also. and there has been zero attention from zos on the french forums. not everyone who plays in french can understand english, so they probably aren't involved on this forum at all

it's not just the voice acting (indeed) (my message above has been edited)

Jaimeh · December 8

licenturion wrote: »

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

To each their own, but I'm sure you can understand that the people who have followed the story and the characters in french for so many years feel upset in the sudden break in continuity; it's not just different VAs it's a different language with its own way of calling lore related things, and so on, it must feel very jarring and discombobulating not to experience the game in the way that you have for such a long time.

DexterMorg4n · December 8

Well, this just confirmed what I thought, and it’s not surprising. Needless to say, I already canceled my ESO+ subscription and freed up 120 GB on my hard drive.

A drop in the ocean. Love you, ZOS

xR3ACTORx · 1:18AM

Mmmmh. Not an expert, but I think in Europe people have the right to involve consumer protection organizations.

Several time some governments managed to hold companies accountable, for example for loot boxes (even banned in Belgium I think). Apple decided to change their chargers worldwide because of EU law.

Worth a try, there is definitely laws in the EU that prevent misleading advertisements.

SwordOfSagas · 8:21AM

why is there a European server with no French lol also the French Canadians, I only speak English but it just seems strange.

SwordOfSagas · 8:25AM

Jaimeh wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Your English is very good though.

Personally I never understood the need for audio dubs.

I watch series and movies in 20 different languages and always prefer the original language with subtitles. Way more immersive delivery, better lip sync and more authentic. By doing this I even understand words from different languages after a while too.

To each their own, but I'm sure you can understand that the people who have followed the story and the characters in french for so many years feel upset in the sudden break in continuity; it's not just different VAs it's a different language with its own way of calling lore related things, and so on, it must feel very jarring and discombobulating not to experience the game in the way that you have for such a long time.

ESO is a special MMO because you don't have to read everything an NPC is saying + some NPC's in dungeons give queues what to do, the time it takes to read you probably get one shot.