Star Wars: The Old Republic looks set to scoop a number of awards, but it’s starting the mantlepiece collection off early with its name in the Guinness Book of World Records 2012. It’s taken the record for most voice acting in an entertainment project. The game boasts an impressive 200,000 lines of dialogue delivered by over 200 actors.
Game director James Ohlen spoke to PC Gamer about BioWare’s decision to go through with such an extensive voice project. According to Ohlen, it “was really exciting”.
“I remember showing a demo to Ray and Greg to budget, and actually calculated out “here’s how much extra money we’re going to spend if we’re going to do player voice.” I did the demo to them and they were like “we have to go this way,” he continues.
Ohlen slyly hid the full cost of such an ambitious undertaking, but he’d already managed to reel them in. “Ray and Greg are very much about quality so they wanted to. They signed off on an amount. That was a big one I think just because we were gonna be pretty much spent out of time, but we did.”
As for the exact amount, Ohlen is staying tight-lipped, but given the amount of actors involved it obviously didn’t come cheap.
With a Metacritic score currently at 87, the effort must have paid off, and those kinds of nuances are exactly the kind of thing the hardcore fan base will appreciate. Regardless of whether or not you’re a fan of the franchise, whenever a game raises the bar it’s good for all of us.
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