Obsidian's limited time and resources had to be maximized with creative approaches to writing - even if that meant writing no dialogue at all. Creating downloadable content for Fallout: New Vegas required the same amount of speech as these full fledged titles, but its piecemeal nature and smaller price tag mandated a smaller budget.Īccording to Obsidian Entertainment chief creative officer Chris Avellone, who spoke during GDC Online about the process of writing the Fallout: New Vegas DLC, conceptualizing, coordinating, writing, and recording dialogue is an incredibly expensive process. Grand Theft Auto IV had a staggering 80,000 lines of dialogue. However, 10,000 lines of dialogue is a fraction of what appears in an average full, open-world video game. That would allot 2,500 lines for each four-hour add-on, only slightly less than the 3,000 lines of dialogue that appear in an average motion picture.

That may sound like a sufficient amount, at first blush. The creation of narrative probably seems like a process that requires the freedom and openness for the author to do whatever they want with the story they're crafting - but when the writing team at Obsidian Entertainment was charged with penning the four downloadable expansions to Fallout: New Vegas, they were given a hard limit for the amount they were allowed to write.įor all four DLC packs, there could be no more than 10,000 lines of dialogue total.

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