‘Starfield’ criticised for its “borderline insulting” Irish accents

12 September, 2023

Starfield has suffered some ridicule for an assumed Irish character who fans are arguing doesn’t sound anything like an actual Irish person.

Dr. Charlie Flynn, a non playable character found in Cydonia’s Reliant Medical Office, has been the target of this criticism. “The Irish accents in Starfield are… yeah. I’m crying,” IGN news editor Wesley Yin-Poole wrote with a clip of the character in conversation. Check it out below:

To those who are familiar with Irish accents, Dr. Charlie Flynn’s accent isn’t locatable anywhere in the country. “Bloody planet” sounds specifically American and “always” starts with the closed “a” sound that is heavily used in southern British accents.

Additionally, the subtitles don’t correspond to the actor’s performance. Dr. Flynn uses the words “me” and “eejit” when she speaks but they are spelled “my” and “idiot” in the subtitles. “This is borderline insulting, I mean did they just ask them to do a stereotypical cartoon paddy accent and call it a day?” replied one user on X.

It could be rationalised that accents have shifted into new sounds in the centuries which have passed since humans left Earth for the stars in Starfield. However, this reason doesn’t explain the prevalence of unaffected American, Australian and British accents.

Furthermore, fans pointed out that Bethesda has gotten Irish accents wrong a few times – Colin Moriarty in Fallout 3, Sheogorath in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Cait in Fallout 4.

Another took issue with the security company CeltCorp that is the first of the Ryujin faction missions in Starfield. The NPC that the player meets in that company is a red-headed woman called Clover McKenna. “I appreciate the effort but what the actual fuck,” Reddit user ShotgunForFun wrote.

In other gaming news, Twitch streamer Perrikaryal showed off how she can score kills in Halo Infinite using only her mind to move her character, aim and shoot.

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