Nightveil Hallow: Audio Deep Dive
Greetings, Adventurers!
From voiceovers (VO) to sound design, discover how the Audio Team designed Nightveil Hallow. Once you’ve learned more about the voice and sound effects behind Baalphazu, confront the Marquis of Terror in-game for event-specific rewards before Nightveil Hallow ends on November 5.
Casting Baalphazu and Salvatore was rather unusual compared to how we typically handle that process. Starting with Salvatore, they wanted to have this voice pay homage to some of the great actors from the golden age of horror films like Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and Lon Chaney. This became a rather challenging request to find just the right voice.
After reviewing dozens of reels from voice actors, I was chatting with one of our wonderful directors. They shared a general joy and excitement for the character, suggested some folks, and then later that day sent me an email out of the blue. Attached was a recording of an excerpt from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. Much to our delight, and from the initial confusion of “yes, that’s a perfect voice," to «if only we could find an actor to do something similar,” we had cast our Salvatore.
We were sitting on pins and needles, nervous but excited during the first recording session. As soon as it started, the entire crew was grinning from ear to ear. A few of us couldn’t help but chime in during breaks and pauses to sing our praises about how he sounded just like one of those golden age actors.
We knew from a design perspective that Baalphazu was going to be really intense and vocally very straining. So, we wanted to make sure whoever we cast for the role could handle screeches, screams, growls and more.
The voice behind Baalphazu is Molly Scarpine, an incredibly talented metal vocalist who just so happens to specialize in extreme creature vocals. Molly was recommended to us initially by our Director Maddie Stratton as a “hey, check out this vocalist and her band. They’re really cool.” After hearing Molly’s music,
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