Absolutely agree. I'd rather have some random Bungie employee do the voice over, rather than having just subtitles.

To use your hamburger analogy, this is the difference between you getting the burger now but it not being exactly what you wanted because the pickles are missing, or having to wait for the burger for an unknown amount of time, or getting a burger made with tofu because the beef industry refuses to sell the beef to the restaurant ever again. If a non union voice actor were to “cross the picket line” so to speak, then the actor union (SAG) would black list them from any union projects moving forward. Forever. They would effectively torpedo their entire career for one job. They would never be able to work in the industry in North America ever again on anything meaningful. On top of that Bungie itself would be likely blacklisted by the union. Meaning that any actor currently voicing any of the characters we know would have to quit the role, and would never be able to return to voicing it again. Shaxx, Eris, Drifter, Mara-Sov, Ikora, every single character including Cayde. Gone. All those actors wouldn’t be able to return to the role, unless they wanted to be kicked out of the union and lose all access to every union job moving forward. And the non union acting jobs pay very, very little compared to the union ones. So in order to have these voice lines, actors would have to give up any future livelihood/income, and we (the customer) would have to give up having the characters sound ANYTHING like what we know, and possibly even have no voice acting at all. I agree that it sucks that we don’t have all the voice lines in the game. Breaks the immersion, doesn’t feel as good of a story and it feels incomplete. Just know that the price for anyone crossing the picket line, and for Bungie hiring someone outside of the union is blacklisting for all of those parties FOREVER. Bungie was in a spot where they could delay the release and make all of us mad, or push it through like this and not have it be complete, or hire non union people and almost certainly losing access to all the voice talent moving forward with no way to get them back. Given their limited options, they chose this path. VERY rarely if a production requests special exemption from the union during a strike will they be allowed to continue with production/recording. Even then, it would only happen if Bungie agreed to use a contracts with the new pay rate, benefits, residuals etc. that SAG was trying to get for the actors it represents. I don’t know if Bungie tried to do this and was willing to pay the higher contracts the union wanted but since Bungie never mentioned anything about this, I feel like they didn’t want to spend any extra money. Because “over delivery” is a bad word with them. I’ve been disappointed by Bungie and I don’t think they are a good company, that being said, all of the above is the reality of the voice acting industry. If Bungie made the right call here, I dunno, and I dont defend them for much of anything these days. I just know I’d rather read a bit of text now, than eliminate ANY chance of the story getting better because all the voice actors we know and like are forced to not come back to their roles and we have only subtitles or substandard voice work by people who don’t sound like what they do now. If you still feel like they should have hired other people to do the voice lines, that’s cool. There would be a cost for that, and I’m not just talking about money. If you have any questions about what I wrote, feel free to ask. I know it’s a wall of text, maybe I gave too much info, maybe not enough. Have a good one!

I care. While missing voice lines are disappointing I do understand/accept the reason for their absence and support the people that are on strike.

Agreed.

I'd of rather the episode not come out at all honestly, tons of bugs, missing VA lines, absurd modifiers and encounter designs, like what is bungie doing this is peak comedy, no VAs lines recorded for the content? LOL Oh but hey they made sure to reassure us with the subtitles AND then put a biiiiig banner up on the screen asking for money for the StarWars collab (they're going to ruin Marathon with the same kind of cash shop mtx stuff for sure)

Just get someone in studio to record the missing lines "why does Sloan sound so different ?, must be taken interference" That's all you had to do

Honestly I agree. I mean if I was a voice actor the only protection from A.I. that I'd want would be that I would still be getting paid for the use of my voice. It would mean less work for me and easy money. I'm just happy that when I bought and finished the final shape with my friend and refunded it I got to keep the annual pass, so all three episodes have been free for me XD

Bungie probably can’t afford or it’s not apart of their budget .