Caleb from Blood did have dialogue and some minor characterization - dude liked murder, and was really mad when his girlfriend died. That's about it, but it's still more than most FPS protags from the time. Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior was notably a huge chatterbox, never fuckin' shut up - there wasn't much actual value to his character because it was mostly just comedy of varying degrees of funny filtered through a racist imitation of an 'Asian' accent, but nevertheless it existed.
The guy in Redneck Rampage talked too, though that again was just jokes filtered through a cartoon redneck accent filter. Still, point being: protagonists that talked were kind of a trademark of Build Engine games, all the notable ones had a vocal protagonist. Your overall point is still correct, though.
Caleb from Blood did have dialogue and some minor characterization - dude liked murder, and was really mad when his girlfriend died. That's about it, but it's still more than most FPS protags from the time. Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior was notably a huge chatterbox, never fuckin' shut up - there wasn't much actual value to his character because it was mostly just comedy of varying degrees of funny filtered through a racist imitation of an 'Asian' accent, but nevertheless it existed.
The guy in Redneck Rampage talked too, though that again was just jokes filtered through a cartoon redneck accent filter. Still, point being: protagonists that talked were kind of a trademark of Build Engine games, all the notable ones had a vocal protagonist. Your overall point is still correct, though.