Sam Witwer, the voice of Days Gone’s Deacon St. John, talked about what went into bringing the character to life in an interview with Electric Playground. He revealed it all began with a tumultuous period of around nine months, then went on to talk about some improvisational elements and how many hours of cinematic scenes were shot.
Working on Days Gone was a four-year process for Witwer. However, he noted that getting started was the hardest part, as recording didn’t go as he expected. He noted, “I got very moody on almost the first nine months of working on that game because I didn’t quite understand what was going on.” Witwer and the team at Sony Bend shot different versions of the same scene repeatedly, in order to find the right tone and personality for the character.
As time went on, Witwer said that he warmed up to the process and started to enjoy it as he began to understand his character. At first, Deacon St. John was quick to make quips, but Witwer explained that he worked with Sony Bend and all found a way to fit “very realistic, grim, gallows humor in this world.” Days Gone‘s cast, Director John Garvin, and the rest of the team at Sony Bend figured out what tone the project needed as development progressed. Witwer said, “John had the latitude to shoot something, see if it worked, [and] go back to the drawing board if it didn’t.”
Garvin apparently encouraged the cast to improvise their scenes, so they could come up with interesting moments for the game. Witwer mentioned how this took some adjustment, since he was accustomed to following a script. (He specifically referenced his Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Starkiller experience.) He said, “Once I caught on to how they were working, I had so much fun. It was like, nine months of real discomfort and then like three years of just incredible fun,”
Witwer also expressed his surprise at how Days Gone grew as time went on. He explained that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and its sequel became smaller in scope, while this project was the exact opposite. For example, Witwer said that more side quests and scenes were added to the game to help players have more of an emotional connection to the character. In total, over six hours worth of cinematics appear in the game.
Days Gone is set to release as an exclusive for PS4 on April 26th, 2019, and it is a big one. It’s a 67GB download! It’s not too far away, but you can still preorder the game on Amazon. Look out for our review in the coming weeks!
[Source: Electric Playground]
