Like any good AAA RPG, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a sizeable game, and according to developer BioWare, the game’s scope–including its huge cast of characters and hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue–is part of why it took so long to create. That massive scope includes more than 700 different characters and 140,000 lines of dialogue.
“We wanted to make sure we got this one right,” creative director John Epler said in a recent interview with GamesRadar, in which he also revealed the enormous amount of dialogue.
Performance director Ashley Barlow added that–in addition to other projects BioWare was working on during the decade between Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Veilguard–part of the reason the game took so long to make was simply due to the sheer number of characters and voice lines.
“We started casting five years ago,” Barlow said. “The team, the talent, has been on for five years. It takes a long time to record [dialogue for] 700 characters, you know–80,000 lines or 140,000 lines with all the Rooks. It just takes time to make [it] good.”
The game features seven romanceable companion characters, and the player-character–who BioWare has nicknamed Rook–has four voices for players to choose from (two feminine voices and two masculine voices). That brings the total number of voice actors for main characters alone to 11. Add in Varric (who will accompany the player in certain parts of the game) and the game’s main antagonist, Solas, and you’re looking at 13 voice actors who absolutely must get their lines right.
Given the fact that the total number of characters is 700 (with all of them voiced by actual humans), it’s no surprise that the game took significant time to make, especially considering the varying dialogue branches that have become commonplace in most RPGs. They even got Alex Jordan, who provided all of the kissing noises for Baldur’s Gate 3, to pitch in for one of Rook’s voices (it’s unclear if he also provided smooching sounds for The Veilguard’s spicier scenes).
“I sit on a throne of moans,” Jordan joked on Twitter.
But all the time in the recording booth was worth it, according to Epler, who says the newest entry in the Dragon Age franchise is “the best version” of the game that it “could possibly be.”
BioWare still hasn’t announced an official release date, but the game is currently slated for release sometime in late 2024. For more information on the upcoming fantasy RPG, check out everything we know about Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
