How many times have you seen something like that in a game script? Or something like “I need you to…” only to be followed by a line from another character cutting the initial character off? This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. Humans don’t talk like this, so our game characters shouldn’t either.

I want you to practice cutting someone off verbally. Let them start a sentence and then talk over them half way through it. When you stomp on their sentence, listen carefully to how they react. They don’t stop talking immediately, if they even stop at all. Some people will keep right on going, happily ignoring your interruption. Most, however, will still get a word or two out after your interruption. The stop isn’t immediate. So why are we writing our scripts this way?

There are two steps to follow in order to solve this problem. First, write a complete line in the script, and use notation to indicate that the character is being cut off and where in the sentence he or she will be cut off. Then act out the scenes together. If you can get both characters in booths at the same session, great, but even if you can’t the voice director can fix this by playing the extra character. Make sure your actor knows that the line will be interrupted, but that they do not where in the line they will be cut off. Their copy of the script should be missing this notation. Instruct them to react as they normally would when being interrupted. Then have the other actor or the voice director cut them off by talking over them in their cue mix.

When you mix the results together in game, you’ll find that the transition plays out in a much more natural way.

A cousin of this problem is the cliché radio interference line. You’ve heard it in numerous games, and it often sounds unnatural. Why? Because the line, in the script, is often written as it is in the topic of this post. An actor trying to recreate this will not sound natural. Give them a complete line, let them read it, then make edits in post to distort or cover up the words you don’t want coming through. The result will, again, be far more natural.

These two issues are pet peeves because they’re simple to spot and simple to fix, yet games continue to get this wrong. It makes no sense to me. I’ve given you the solutions. Stop doing this. Please

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