GDC 2025 Session Viewer
The Voice Designer’s Toolbox: Dialogue in 'Star Wars Outlaws'
Charles Pateman (Lead Voice Designer, Massive Entertainment – a Ubisoft Studio)
Pass Type: All Access Pass, Core Pass, Audio Pass - Get your pass now!
Track: Audio
Format: Lecture
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
Voice Design for a game like Star Wars Outlaws is about as complex as Voice Design can get. The combination of its open world setting, narrative driven format and being in a beloved franchise with a distinctive sonic identity presents unique technical, creative and logistical challenges, but an amazing opportunity to utilize the richness of voice to its fullest potential.
To deliver a big, vibrant, multi-cultural galaxy like we see in the movies, Outlaws needed as much vocal variety as possible, with accents from every continent, bizarre alien languages, and species from all corners of the galaxy. Above all, Voice Design needed to remain faithful to the distinct vocal signatures of the Original Trilogy while evoking the cinematic flair of the movies in an interactive environment and this meant a lot of detailed, complex work.
This talk is a fly-through of Star Wars Outlaws’ Voice Design from pre-production to premix, covering everything that made the creative intent a mixable reality. Exploring how voice and dialogue can be used as a storytelling and world building element of a game’s soundtrack.
Takeaway
This talk explores the wide and varied work of Voice Design for games and what Star Wars teaches us about how to use voice to its fullest potential. Gain insights into: planning for success for Voice Design, adopting a proactive mindset to bring fun and believability to gameplay, and ideas on how to orchestrate the multitudes of dialogue features to contribute to the broader artistic goals of a game’s soundtrack.
Intended Audience
Voice/Dialogue Designers, Audio Directors/Leads/Designers, anyone working closely with VO such as Producers, Narrative Designers, Game Designers or QA, or anyone interested in what Voice Design for games entails.