Articles

Mixing voice in games can be a major logistical challenge, with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lines, often multiplied by the number of full localized languages. This article explored the advantages and disadvantages of using Wwise External Sources to implement your game's VO using examples taken from Star Wars Outlaws.

This step-by-step "how to" article describes how to set up metering structure to drive dynamic EQs in Wwise for mixing VO. Dynamic EQ is a much more effective approach for mixing voice and dialogue with other audio food groups as it allows you to carve out space for voice and dialogue intelligibility more transparently while avoiding brute force ducking.

When WeMakeAudio took on the creative and technical audio direction for Gods Will Fall, the dark fantasy rogue-like beat-'em-up from Clever Beans and Deep Silver, one of our biggest challenges was designing the game's voice system. It wasn’t just about combat sounds — we needed a dynamic dialogue system to bring the story to life and immerse players in a world of ancient gods, terrifying beasts, and procedurally generated warriors.

"In this first installment, Senior Dialogue Designers Arthur Tisseront & Taneli Suoranta take us into the depths of Alan Wake 2’s dialogue implementation, breaking down the interplay of spoken and narrated dialogue and how audio design helped maintain clarity in a world where reality is constantly shifting."

After rattling around roller coasters for several hours straight, you’d be forgiven for speaking gibberish. Presumably while tottering gingerly toward the nearest bathroom. But the thrill-seeking inhabitants of Planet Coaster 2 are built of sturdier stuff. The noises they trill ahead of leaping into a flume or stopping for a bite at Chief Beef might sound like nonsense, but there’s genuine meaning there. That’s because Planet Coaster 2 (along with the original and Planet Zoo) is one of a handful of video games to create a fictional language. Say hello, or indeed hayo, to Planco.

The Star Wars Outlaws sound team at Massive Entertainment took sonic inspiration from the original Star Wars Trilogy films, embuing the sound of Outlaws with a 'tape flavor,' choosing 'warmth over precision' and 'analog over digital.'

An interview with the Sony Creative Arts team about the audio for Helldivers II including Senior Dialogue Designer Bianca Salinas and Dialogue Designer Damian O'Sullican.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (developed by Massive Entertainment/distributed by Ubisoft) is an immersive open-world action-adventure game that lets you discover the world of the Avatar film franchise in a whole new way. And in this, our biggest-ever game audio story, Audio Director Alex Riviere, Voice Lead Maria Bantin, Audio Lead Mattia Cellotto, Audio Lead David Osternacher, and Technical Sound Designer Franz Bierschwale discuss their approach to building reactive environments, creating bespoke systems for foley and breaths, emitter management, acoustics, and many more.

"In-depth “course” on the basics of dialog editing"

"A guide to attending recording sessions remotely. This guide was developed and refined between 2016-2024 with the help and support of many amazing people. It is one of many possible approaches to the challenges of working with actors and recording dialogue for games at distance. Please use this guide to develop your own workflows and tools. It is a guide, not a rulebook."

Game sound now arguably exceeds film’s potential for sophistication, artistry and story-telling. Some of the best in the business explain the ‘state of the art’.

In Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Mirage, the player takes on the role of a Baghdad street thief named Basim (who was introduced in Assassin's Creed Valhalla). Here, the game audio team at Ubisoft Bordeaux Studio – led by Audio Director Étienne Marque – talk about the differences in their approaches to Valhalla and Mirage, how they created the sound of ninth-century Baghdad (including building believable crowds), what went into designing their ambience and foley systems, how they created the sound of the new ability 'Assassin Focus,' what went into their UI sounds, and so much more!

Gamers are thrilled with Remedy Entertainment's Alan Wake 2. This long-anticipated sequel to Alan Wake (2010) deviates from the original action-adventure game by leaning into the darker aspects as a survival horror game. In this massive interview, the Alan Wake 2 sound team discusses their aesthetic inspirations for the game, how they created new vocals for the 'Taken' and 'Fade Outs,' how they designed Washington State and the Dark Place like two different games, how they used music to support gameplay and misdirect the player, how they designed immersive environments, how they handled the sound for teleporting, and much, much more!

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts – is the highly anticipated sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), and picks up five years later with young Jedi Knight Cal Kestis continuing the fight against the Galactic Empire. Here, the sound team (led by Audio Director Nick von Kaenel at Respawn Entertainment) talks about how they built upon the foundation of Fallen Order while still creating something fun and fresh for Star Wars games fans.

What exactly does game audio mixing entail? In the guide below, Audio Director Alex Riviere explores what mixing means and requires in a game audio content, the unique possibilities and challenges it offers - and he outlines the key areas and processes to focus on to make your game sound its best.

An overview of Voice Design as a discipline in game audio; its growth over the years, the range of tasks we undertake and the creative opportunities in the field.

The third and final part of Maize Wallin's article on the VO pipeline forWayward Strand.

The second part of Maize Wallin's article on the VO pipeline for Wayward Strand.

What it says on the tin!

With a cast of 14 actors, and 3 in-game days, while a single playthrough takes around 4 hours, the content is equivalent to over 18 feature films, with over 18,000 lines of fully voiced dialogue.

Supermassive Games branching-narrative horror game The Quarry lets players decide the fate of nine camp counselors who overstay their seasonal employment only to find a supernatural threat has been unleashed and is seeking their demise. Here, Soundcuts Audio Director Adele Cutting talks about the all-important dialogue (voiced in 8 different languages), their approach to creating cinematic sound that nods to classic horror films, crafting responsive ambiences using open-world game techniques, scoring interactive music and working with licensend music, designing the werewolf sounds, and so much more!

James Stant, Dialogue Manager at Frontier Developments talks about how he approached the audio for Planet Coaster and creating a global language that reflects the spirit of the game.

Huang Chao describes how to create temporary VO assets automatically with WAAPI and TTS.

This week, Jake implements dialogue centered around narration using Wwise and Unreal Engine!

Behind The Glass speaks to Dialogue Designers about the challenges of creating dialogue for games (page 4).

Join Jake as he creates a functioning dynamic dialogue system in Wwise and Unity!

A note of transferable skills; post production sound and game audio (page 39).

Dev diary for Tell Me Why from Dont Nod, covering their approach to mixing, including voice and dialogue.

Dev diary for Tell Me Why from Dont Nod, covering their approach to voice and dialogue.

Naughty Dog's highly-anticipated The Last of Us Part II (available now for PS4) sold over 4 million copies in just 3 days, and the reviews are phenomenal. Here, we talk with the Naughty Dog sound team about building reactive environments, designing the Infected, the crucial role of Foley, developing better accessibility features, and much (much!) more in this huge interview.

"When editing dialog, I have found that a few key concepts are at the forefront of my decision-making process. I’m 100% certain I will miss some things, as I’ve never actually codified my thought process until now. Furthermore, this isn’t a checklist I go through on each decision. A lot of editing becomes rote. But when I have a difficult decision, or a major one that will impact the way I work on an entire scene, this is how I will proceed."

Entering into the realm of Star Wars entertainment takes courage. Fans are notoriously exacting, scrutinizing every aspect of the project. But that high standard sets this IP apart. Respawn Entertainment nailed their first Star Wars title: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which has garnered acclaim from critics and gamers alike. Their sound team — led by Audio Director Nick Laviers — shares an in-depth look at how they designed this game’s stellar sound.

Part 1 of this behind the scenes with the Obsidian audio team includes a section covering AI barks systems and runtime FX.

Current accomplishments in AI have had a positive influence on game development, including game audio. I want to share with you an example of how developments in AI have helped our team save time and effort in voice over production for our latest project.

Apex Legends - the recently-launched free-to-play battle royale game from EA/Respawn Entertainment - is a gigantic success, reaching a player count of a staggering 50 million within its first month and showing no signs of stopping. Here, they talk about their approach to creating sound for an ever-evolving game, share details on the sound design of each Legend character, discuss the strategic use of sound to help players work as a team + lots (and lots!) more.

Blazing Griffin's Jaime Cross talks about the dialogue and conversation design in Murderous Pursuits (Part 2).

Blazing Griffin's Jaime Cross talks about the dialogue and conversation design in Murderous Pursuits (Part 1).

"On the surface the dialogue in games can tell a story. The voiceover or dialogue on a cut scene, in-game conversation or the internal monologue of a character is all enforcing the narrative of the game. But the role of dialogue goes much further than telling stories and this is what stands game dialogue apart from other mediums."

An in depth look at Planet Coaster's crowd system (part 3/3).

James Stant, Dialogue Manager at Frontier Developments, discusses creating the Planco constructed language for Planet Coaster.

An in depth look at Planet Coaster's crowd system (part 2/3).

An in depth look at Planet Coaster's crowd system (part 1/3).

A multi part talk about the audio of The Witcher 3, with this part covering crowds/walla.

During Audiokinetic's Wwise Tour, Project Audio Director Scott Lawlor, and Senior Software Engineer 2 Tomas Neumann, presented their work. The considerations, successes and lessons learnt are demonstrated in a series of very educational Wwise Tour videos from the event. (Part 2)

During Audiokinetic's Wwise Tour, Project Audio Director Scott Lawlor, and Senior Software Engineer 2 Tomas Neumann, presented their work. The considerations, successes and lessons learnt are demonstrated in a series of very educational Wwise Tour videos from the event. (Part 1)

Gamasutra speaks to voice director, consultant and game industry veteran Khris Brown to better understand how high-quality voicework in games comes together from a developer perspective.

The Double Fine senior gameplay programmer and experienced public speaker explains her inspiration for pitching an indie-focused talk about dialog system design at GDC Europe 2014.

An article about the narrative of Spec Ops: The Line; has some interesting use of progression oriented contextual barks to support the narrative.

Voice Casting for Video Games - Part 1: Follow The Brief. Casting characters for video games brings to light many wrong assumptions about work in the medium from both the agents and the hopeful 'talent'.

In this reprint from the November 2011 issue of Game Developer magazine, Jesse Harlin speaks with voice directors from LucasArts and Telltale for some industry insights.

These are my views as a casting and voice director working with video games. This is for actors, to help better equip them for not blowing their foot off.

Voice is often considered the most important audio in a video game. In some cases it absolutely must be heard, but in other cases, not so much. How do we draw the line?

How do you organize and structure the creation of dialogue for video games, "perhaps the single most important aspect of video game audio"? Game audio veteran Rob Bridgett examines the key issues and possible solutions.

In an in-depth Gamasutra analysis piece, Ellison looks at the universe and history of player-NPC dialogue interaction in games, analyzing titles from Mass Effect through Facade to The Sims and beyond.

Voice acting is a surprisingly vital part of character-based game creation - and Gamasutra talks to Sony dialog manager deBeer on his work aiding titles from the God of War series to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

Screen/Play is a regular feature that discusses best practices for storytelling in games. This article, the first in the series, discusses how to properly document voice assets in a flexible, intuitive spreadsheet, with an example extract from the fictional game King Arthur Up In This Piece.

Screen/Play is a regular feature that discusses best practices for storytelling in games. This article, the first in the series, discusses how to properly document voice assets in a flexible, intuitive spreadsheet, with an example extract from the fictional game King Arthur Up In This Piece.

Red Storm writer/designer Rafael Chandler (Rainbow Six: Lockdown) discusses processes and systems that will help a game writer minimize dialogue change during production, and analyzes some of the dependencies that a writer can account for along the way.

This article focuses on the latest Hollywood production methods being adopted by game producers to create better voice-over assets. From getting the right start by ensuring that you have a well-polished script (because paring the world's best actor with a poorly written script leaves you with nothing more than bad entertainment), to securing the ideal actors at below-market rates, dealing with the unions without dealing with the unions, directing professional actors to capture your characters' personalities, all the way through to systematically managing the dialogue files.