The sequel to one of the most successful Kickstarter projects in years, “Divinity: Original Sin 2” has been confirmed by developers to be fully voiced. While a seriously difficult and expensive undertaking, the hope from developers is that this will make the game feel much more immersive for players.
What is “Divinity”?
“Divinity: Original Sin” “Divinity: Original Sin” is a turn-based RPG created by Larian Studios and was funded through Kickstarter. The game was successful among RPG fans who loved the amount of choice and freedom the game gave them.
While originally the game was not fully-voiced, the “Enhanced Edition” released later added much more voice-acting to the experience.
How much voice acting?
The game’s developers have claimed that there are over a million words of dialogue in the game, and over a thousand NPCs and player characters that need distinctive voices. This much voice-over could not have been an easy task, but if fans of the series take to the second game as they did the first, the expense will likely have been worth it.
Problems
There is such thing as too much of a good thing. Many fans of role-playing video games are nervous when developers say their game is fully voiced. The reason for this is simple; because voice-acting can be expensive, developers will often cut back on the amount of dialogue within the game to ensure the game stays within a manageable budget.
This can lead to a game’s story being too short or the characters and quests within being underdeveloped. Games such as “Pillars of the Earth”, or an older generation of cRPGs like “Baldur’s Gate” and “Planescape Torment” had very little voice-acting but are regarded as having some incredibly deep stories, thanks to how much dialogue they were allowed to have.
With “Divinity: Original Sin 2”, the problem seems to be avoided. If the developers are to be believed, then all the dialogue was written and implemented and the voice-acting came later. We have not heard if there will be major dialogue cuts due to this decision, and that is likely not something they would advertise, but it is safe to assume that little was cut to make way for voice-acting.
The developers know their audience wants a deep and engrossing role-playing experience. They will never compete with the mainstream, AAA games, and thus they can’t afford to make massive dialogue cuts.
“Divinity: Original Sin 2” will release September 14th, 2017 for the PC.
