It depends on game, when it is like KingdomComeDeliverance it iscool to switch audio to czech and keep subtitles...

Same for Witcher or other games not developee in english speaking country..

But sometimes english dub is only one that have some base quality and dont sound weird , out of context...

If I can help it, I like to play the game in the "intended" language (the native language of the developer). This ensure thats there is no translation errors apart from those from the developers themselves.

If I dont know the language though, rely on English.

Whenever possible I will change the spoken language to the language of the devs, I then just read the subtitles in English.
Most games don't allow you to change the spoken language seperately though, the main exceptions are games from Japan and China.

For me as well, the language of the devs is the "intended language", it captures the cultural input significantly better than generic american or british english, or the generic "non-descript foreign english accent" you get in most games.

I could never play a Yakuza game with English as the spoken language for example, to me that's just absurd.

As I've gotten older the cultural elements of a game has become increasingly important to me, I like to feel that the game I'm playing comes from a real place and is an expression of or extension from that culture, that I can say "this is a game from China/Japan/Poland/Brazil/etc.".

That's why I gravitate more towards games from Japan and China, most of their devs are not trying to make a Western or even global game, but a Chinese or Japanese one. I wish more developers from around the world would do the same.

I almost always change the language to English when games automatically offer me German just because it's the language of my OS. The reason has little to do with me not liking my native tongue though, it's more that I'm overly critical of dubbing and translations and prefer to watch and play stuff in its original language, if possible.

For one, translations and dubbing in videogames often aren't of very high professional quality, unless there is a lot of money involved (the German version of Borderlands 2 for example is comparatively good, with professional voice-actors, but the same can't be said for most translations). Also, e.g. the way people curse in English sounds very unnatural and over the top when translated to German literally, due to differences in language and culture. Most Germans are used to it by now due to all the literal movie dubbing but still. Accents, dialects and slang are also hard to translate, and puns only work some of the time.

That being said, if a game was created in German originally, like Deponia or Gothic, I would always prefer the German version over English, for the same reasons.

That's one big issue with dubs that simply cannot be fixed properly: Dialects don't translate.

Dwarves for example have become associated with roughly northern English or Scottish dialects. Which makes sense culturally with mining being much more prevalent in the north of the UK than in other parts. And for English dubs it works, with no one batting an eye at the choice except maybe at the cliché nature of it.

Now for Baldur's Gate the devs technically went above and beyond, doing tons of research and applying the same logic to the German dub. So they settled for Saxonian dwarves, thinking this would translate (no pun intended) perfectly, because East Germany was a huge mining region for many, many centuries. Fits like a glove, right?

What they didn't account for was the association that dialect evokes in Germans. Because Saxonian is very much not associated with tough miners in Germany. Instead it is the most unpopular of all German dialects and considered somewhat embarassing, hillbilly, ridiculous, maybe even a bit effeminate and certainly not masculine or serious.

And the same disconnect happened for the dialect of every other race/faction as well. All of them well researched and historically and culturally accurate/appropriate, yet completely inappropriate choices for every native speaker.

It's hilariously tragic and tragically hilarious...

Gosh, imagine a dwarf with a Kansai dialect.

When a game's native language is not English, and if I understand it, or am trying to learn it, I go for it.
If it's specifically in a native language that is not my own but it also has a translation for my native language, out of consideration, I go for it instead of English (but change it if the translation feels bad).
Else, if the game has a translation for a language I'm trying to learn, and if I feel like it, I change to that given language.
And if the game fits neither of the above, I go for English.

Wow..... I had to read those sentences a couple of times before i grasped a meaning. At first it felt a lot like those scam mails *from, MS office i'm receiving on a regular basis ** Warning - your account is blocked blablaba ** but now i've reached the conclusion that you must be a very precise person. . .

Certainly worth my time, though probably unintended for that specific effect, yeah... :)

as a general rule, i never dub anything. when somebody create a character, the voice is part of that creation just as much as hair colour or body type. a good character creator has a voice in mind when they are designing the look of the character, so they fit together and are all a part of who the character is. no matter how good a dub is, it will never be the same as the original intended voice.

"Scam email" is a new one. =D

A few years back, I've been told by someone that I sound poetic. And a few months ago, someone else said that I sound like ChatGPT. e.e"

Since they've started giving players choice I've always picked Japanese audio in Japanese-developed games. Rarely is English dubbing good; usually so-so at best, but more often it's just outright bad.
Indeed. I can't stand the childish-sounding squeaky voices that often turn up in those dubbed games; seriously, who the fuck is the target audience for that? Makes my ears bleed. Even something like the English voice for the Zelda Switch games is all sorts of cringe.

It is nice to be able to express yourself