Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General Voiceover differences between demo and full game.

Hello.

Recently I tried the BD demo and after deciding I liked it I got the full game on GoG. However I noticed that both the music and voiceovers were different in the full game.

I only played the demo for a bit since I didn't want to spoil the game too much, I never ventured beyond the initial dungeon area.

For example,

The DK. In the full game he has an angry, shouty voice while in the demo it's sombre and metallic.

Edmond the prisoner ghost. In the full game he has a zombie-ish moan while in the demo his voice is very whispery and more ghost-like.

Also, in the demo, the song playing in the starting area is the one called "Playing God" in the full game while in the fg it's some other atmospheric tune.

The thing is that the demo had a great atmosphere with its voices and music and that is what made me want to buy the full game and I was a bit shocked with how different it felt compared to the demo.

Ok, I know it's the demo and it was a long time ago and the song, at least, is used at some later stage of the game but can anyone shed some light on the voiceovers? Why are they so different? Ironically, the voicework in the demo was much better imo.

Is there some "other" English version that uses the demo voiceovers? The Australian one maybe?

This is where I dl-ed the demo: http://www.gamershell.com/download_5253.shtml Give it a listen, the differences are obvious.

After the BD demo was released a portion of the forum at the time complained about the voices (some quite loudly), particularly for the DK. Larian went to the added expense (and time) to redo the voices for the full game, at which point another portion of the forum (many of whom were silent before) complained that they were better in the demo.

FWIW, the DK's voice work gets better as the game progresses.


Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome Raze.

Wow, that's quite the story. Guess I'm kinda late in the coming.

You know what game the demo reminded me of (in terms of atmosphere)? Planescape Torment. Yes, PST of all things. The mystery of it, waking up in a place of death, there was a very similar vibe to it. When we entered the DK's prison cell and he said in that scary, Megatron-like, yet somehow sad voice of his, "See? There's nothing here, only my bitterness", it was a powerful moment. The same when he comments on other people losing their mind, etc.

But when I started playing the full game the "magic" was gone. Unbelievable. The sudden shift from demo to full game was so strong for me it put me off playing the game. I'll need to prepare mentally before I try again.

I don't suppose Larian have those old voices on a USB somewhere? :p

I don't know if the old voices are still around, or how much of the voice work had been completed when they made the switch.

I'd have to install the demo again to check the original DK's voice. For me a more memorable difference when I played the full game was with the talking skull; sure the DK starts off a little shouty with touch of whiny, but the new voice for the skull sounded like someone doing a bad impression of a famous person. In general the voices do get better as the game progresses, and the ones that I recall as standing out were mostly all at the beginning.