The Elder Scrolls Online Takes Us on a Deep Dive into the Voiceover Process, From Scripts to Recording

mmorpg.com:

The Elder Scrolls Online team takes us behind the scenes of the voiceover process, including how they plan out the need for voice acting, casting, and how the recording process works. 

ESO has always featured voice acting, since the decision was made to make it a  fully voice mmorpg. This decision also included several notable actors from launch, something that the Elder Scrolls had done before, but since then, there have been more than a decade of new updates, expansions, new chapters, and loads of story arcs.

Necrom is coming soon, but the interview and behind the scenes deep dive deals with all things Elder Scrolls Online . VO lead, Becky Ichnoski, goes through the process, which can take months, to prepare for new content, record it, and add voice over to many characters. we get the detail that  game contain about 300,000 lines of voice over dialogue in English alone.

First, the team needs to have an idea of what characters are needed, how many,and just what kinds of characters they are. “So, to begin, we jump into the game and play through the content. Things are a work in progress, but we want to get a feel for the quests and meet the characters ourselves,” says Ichnoski. They do a lot of auditions, but sometimes a writer has a particular actor in mind. For High Isle, the character of Dhulef was written with prolific voice actor Phil LaMarr in mind, and he agreed to take the role.

With memorable actors like Billy Boyd, Laura Bailey, Bill Nighy, and LaMarr having contributed to some of the more recent content, the full blog and interview takes us through the entire process. It’s a must for some who wonder just how things come together, especially for a game with so many voiced lines and voiceover as a