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Game News Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter Update #42: Full Voice Acting

Infinitron

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Tags: Divinity: Original Sin 2; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

In the latest Divinity: Original Sin 2 Kickstarter update, Swen Vincke has a very important announcement to make. Despite the fact that he claimed it would be impossible as lately as five months ago, the game will feature full voice acting. All one million words of it. They've had four VO studios churning it out. If it wasn't obvious before, it should be clear now that with Original Sin 2 Larian are truly making a play for the big leagues. The update's accompanying video is dedicated to all things audio, including a visit to the Budapest orchestra that's making the game's music with composer Bobby Slavov. Don't miss the tribute to the late great Kirill Pokrovsky.



Gamescom isn't quite over yet, and Larian still have new things to reveal that are under embargo. Next Thursday, they'll finally unveil the Avellone co-designed Undead race, as well as details about the game's Collector's Edition. According to Swen, there's also going to be some sort of small surprise at the beginning of the week. Perhaps it'll be something like these two fun little videos they've released over the past couple of days.
 

Lahey

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D:OS had some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard. Actors would frequently meander, struggle with bizarre accents seemingly picked at random, or place emphasis where it wasn't needed with their over-the-top deliverery. Much of the fault undoubtedly lies with their direction and not the actors themselves, but the result was atrocious.

As long as they supply an option to turn that shit off I don't particularly care about its inclusion, but it'd be nice if devs understood that bad VA is worse than no VA.
 

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This is now one of the most highly budgeted isometric games of all time, second only to the likes of Diablo. At some point, the question changes from "Can we afford to have full voice acting?" to "Can we afford not to have full voice acting?"
 
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This is now one of the highest budget isometric games of all time, second only to the likes of Diablo. At some point, the question changes from "Can we afford to have full voice acting?" to "Can we afford not to have full voice acting?"
They have already confirmed the intention to bring this sequel on consoles, too.
It's already a genre that won't do too hot there, so let's be real: no voice over would make it absolutely unpalatable for that audience. Which personally I wouldn't give a shit about, but still.

I also suspect that's precisely the reason behind that decision, rather than the will to be nice to their Kickstarter audience.

D:OS had some of the worst voice acting I've ever heard.
I... disagree?
Most of the more common banters were dreadfully obnoxious, but a lot of characters were made more likable and at times even hilarious by their voice over.
 

Lahey

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Agreed. Swen wanted "most expensive crpg" and "fully voiced" in promotional texts to appeal to the masses. When the dullards he's pandering to that care about VA realize D:OS2's is terrible he'll already have their money. Pure, unfiltered decline.

Maybe they'll surprise us with great VA but this video basically confirms that it was a last-minute decision hence the outsourcing to 4 studios so close to launch.
 

Drowed

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Full Voice Acting is very low on my priority list, but I would be lying if I said that I don't like voices in the game. And I don't think D:OS voice acting was bad, not at all. Just exaggerated/caricatured, and that's exactly the style of the textof the game - it fits the game perfectly. But, yeah, I guess they did that because the people cried too much about it. I didn't want to see Larian bleeding money on something this superficial, but I hope it all works out in the end.
 

SniperHF

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D:OS Classic had brilliant minimalist voice acting.

EE was hit and miss, with more misses than hits. They need to have the voice actors talk a little faster and do a better job accurately conveying the situation a character is in when that particular line is read. That will make 2's VO better than what the EE had alone, independent of the quality of the actors.
 

hpstg

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This game on console will just make more people expect more from the next Bioware piece of crap they'll try to play. I would rate it as great incline.
 

Au Ellai

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Well, that's a huge waste of resources. Looking forward to hearing "Hello chosen o... We are the... Would you... Than.... Go to the.... Thank....." repeatedly and trying to focus on reading the text at a reasonable speed while a low budget voice actor demands my attention talking at the speed of a teacher reading to a special needs kindergartner.
 

Iznaliu

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Well, that's a huge waste of resources. Looking forward to hearing "Hello chosen o... We are the... Would you... Than.... Go to the.... Thank....." repeatedly and trying to focus on reading the text at a reasonable speed while a low budget voice actor demands my attention talking at the speed of a teacher reading to a special needs kindergartner.

In most games with it, voice acting can be turned on/off separately.
 

Lahey

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Two minutes of VA vs ten minutes of full orchestra and we focus on the two. :lol:
 

Valky

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This is now one of the most highly budgeted isometric games of all time, second only to the likes of Diablo. At some point, the question changes from "Can we afford to have full voice acting?" to "Can we afford not to have full voice acting?"
That sounds terribly jewish and the line of thinking that the "accessibility" crowd wants to bring about decline.

And I really do NOT like full voice acting in games that use tomes for dialog. In ToEE, the few VA on key characters worked because they didn't give you a dissertation in their conversations. But when I have to sit around for 30 seconds or more for every character's turn in conversation to play the audio versus reading it in 5-10 seconds, all that voice acting is just a time waster that gets in the way of me playing the game.
 

Wild Slop

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Sebille is voiced by a hottie.

Anyway, I already responded in another thread but once more to say how surprising this is.
 

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