Why ‘Horizon Adventures’ Team Nixed Lego’s ‘Mumble Mode’ for PlayStation Franchise’s Original Voice Cast

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer PlayStation‘s “Lego Horizon Adventures” launches Thursday, bringing the epic post-apocalyptic world of machine hunter Aloy into an adorable brick format drastically different in tone from the original Guerrilla Games-produced “Horizon Zero Dawn.” But that playful take is exactly what made the Sony Interactive Entertainment-owned studio, which also produced sequel “Horizon Forbidden West,” so excited to move forward with the project when Lego approached them with the idea in 2022. “The Lego games are really great games for introducing a younger, new audience into the world of ‘Horizon,’ which is, of course, super cool for us,” Guerrilla Games art director Roy Postma told Variety. “From my personal perspective, but I think also a lot of the original, older ‘Horizon’ players who have become parents, or already were parents, it’s the same story.

I’ve played a lot of Lego games in the past with my kids and that was just such a great experience, where you can share your passions and cool ideas with your kids because they’re most likely too young to watch the movies or these kind of things.” But one of the major selling points for PlayStation was the idea of shifting away from Lego’s usual “mumble mode” — the nonsensical unintelligible way the Lego figures speak in the cut scenes for most of the brand’s video games, which helps to cuts down on localization costs — to using the “Horizon” franchise’s actual voice cast, including Aloy actor Ashly Burch. “The voice acting was really good for us internally to nail down hitting the right tone of what makes it a Lego game, but still tell our original story at the same time,” Postma said. “Even our voice actors, they had so much fun recording these.