Homeworld 3 brazenly flouts RTS tradition with units that talk to each other instead of you, their esteemed invisible commander

pcgamer.com:

This is a tough call to make: Should RTS units cycle through acknowledgments when you click on them—«ready,» «awaiting orders,» that kind of thing—or should unit barks have by now evolved past the generic assertions of Command & Conquer and Warcraft? For the upcoming Homeworld 3, Blackbird Interactive is taking the latter position, saying that «the scale of chatter design [in Homeworld 3] surpasses anything done before in the franchise.»

That comment comes from a new Homeworld 3 developer update which also teases the work Blackbird has done on pre-rendered cutscenes and in-engine environment rendering. There's some strong nebula work to admire near the bottom of the post, but the big section in the middle titled «No one can hear you scream» is what caught my attention, because I'm not sure I've ever encountered such a thorough breakdown of RTS unit bark theory.

«Of the four audio design pillars we have for Homeworld 3, the one that has driven ship pilot speech the most is: 'Humanize the fleet,'» writes audio director Dave Renn. «If you've played a lot of real-time strategy games, then you're all-too-familiar with the 'barks' that units give as you order them around. Y'know, 'Zug, zug' and all that. 

»A lot has changed since that golden era of real-time strategy, though. While we could've stuck to tradition, we chose to innovate and create a speech system that'll bring your fleets to life and immerse you in their moment-to-moment interactives and battles."

According to Renn, unit barks in Homeworld 3 should deliver two things to the player: «information and flavor.» To do that, Blackbird has borrowed a format from sports broadcasting, giving each ship a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator. There's a commander