Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Q&A

By Staff, GameSpotPosted Apr 23, 2003 3:03 pm PT

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Q&A We take a look at how the game's voice cast is shaping up.

LucasArts' upcoming role-playing game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, is one of the most ambitious uses of the Star Wars license seen in quite some time. Canadian developer BioWare, whose skill in the genre has been proven with the Baldur's Gate series, is crafting a unique game that is shaping up to offer an epic adventure set in a rich universe. One of the elements that will help complement the impressive visuals and gameplay is the audio. Knights of the Old Republic will feature a sizable chunk of voice acting to bring the game's large cast to life. The game's voice cast includes well-known actors, such as Ed Asner, Raphael Sbarge, Ethan Philips, Jennifer Hale, and Phil LaMarr. We had the chance to talk to Darragh O'Farrell, voice department manager for the game at LucasArts, about how everything is coming together.

GameSpot: Could you tell us a bit about the process of planning voice for a game like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic?

Ed Asner is a member of KOTOR's sizeable voice cast.

Darragh O'Farrell: With a game as big as Knights of the Old Republic, 15,000 lines and 300 characters, voice production has to start at least six months prior to beta. With so many characters and such a large script, good planning and organization are key to a successful production. In order to minimize studio time, we have a unique script for each character and file them alphabetically in folders. One complete copy of the Knights of the Old Republic script fills up 10 5-inch binders. At the beginning of the audition process, we send casting packages to various talent agencies. Those packages contain character descriptions, pictures, and a sample script for each character. The agencies call in the actors they think are appropriate for each character and record their audition. From those auditions we usually make our decisions. If a role is important, then we will use the agency auditions to narrow down the potential candidates and call back the best five or so for an in-person audition.

GS: How big was the cast for the game? How many speaking parts are there?

DO: There were approximately 300 speaking parts and around 100 actors to play those parts. Fortunately, with a game this size, it's easy to have an actor play a few different characters and scatter those parts throughout the game so you'll never notice it's the same actor you heard earlier.

GS: How is the recording process done?

DO: Ordinarily a game of this size, with this much conversational dialogue, would take about seven weeks to record. That would be two four-hour sessions per day with an hour break in the middle. On Knights of the Old Republic, after a couple of weeks of recording all day and night, we came in at around five weeks of recording. With a game this nonlinear we had to record one actor at a time. To try to record more than one actor would be too complicated and too expensive.

Jennifer Hale is a veteran of film, television, and theater.

GS: Speaking of the script, how complete was what you had to work with? Did it change much during the process? How is that handled?

DO: The script was 90 percent locked when we received it. There were a few changes made during recording, but most of the remaining 10 percent will be dealt with in our pickup session. The pickup session is right at the end of the project, where we catch performance issues, tutorial lines, verbal hints, and anything else that we might have overlooked.

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