[MUSAI] ‘Call of Duty: Vanguard’, the Story behind the Korean Voiceover and Feedback from Gaming Influencers

2021-11-12

Call of Duty: Vanguard (referred to as Vanguard) was unveiled on November 5th. This brand-new Call of Duty title invites players on a journey in World War II, setting the battlefield from Europe to Asia. Players will be involved in Task Force One which is a group of soldiers from various allied nations and fight to stop the forces of evil trying to take the entire world.

After its release, the Korean gamers showed various responses, mixing both criticisms and favorable reviews. There were some users who were somewhat disappointed with the campaign mode due to the short storyline, otherwise, with the strong popularity of the Call of Duty franchise in Korea, there were also plenty of positive comments on attractive characters, an action-packed multiplayer mode, and fending off the zombies.

On the other hand, it was strongly appealed to the Korean gamers that Vanguard supports both the Korean subtitles and voiceover. For games in a genre which it is difficult for players to read subtitles while playing, such FPS games, the role of voiceover is very important in immersion. Proving that fact, it was easily found out on SNS that many Korean gamers, including popular gaming influencers, played Vanguard with the Korean voiceover. Moreover, voice actor Kim Hye-seong, who played the character Private ‘Des Wilmot’ in Vanguard, uploaded a video playing the title with the Korean voiceover on his personal YouTube channel and it gained lots of views.

Musai Studio, who has been working on the Korean voiceover of the recent Call of Duty series from ‘Modern Warfare’ to ‘Black Ops Cold War’ and ‘Vanguard’, said that Vanguard was very different title from the previous two works in terms of localization.

The Korean voiceover process of Vanguard took the whole summer from last July and included 52 Korean voice talents. Although the battle was set in the World War II, the miserable event in the human history, the game didn’t only focus on the tragedy. It included various cinematic elements telling the story through the lives of each character. Therefore, unlike the previous titles that showed the horrors of war, the direction of voiceover for Vanguard was focused on each heroic characters and their humorous conversation even in the tensed wartime.

For example, all characters in Vanguard have a transcendent ability, so they are enough to be called as a “hero” – a sniper determining the victory of a country in a war, the other one blowing up two aircraft alone, and even a leader who speaks 7 languages, etc. It was very important to show the heroic aspects of characters through their conversation and situation during the recording session.

Also, there was always a humorous point in any situation, so it was also an essential point in the Korean voiceover recording of Vanguard to properly express their jokes and sarcasm in Korean and to make a balance between the pleasant characters and the tragedy of World War II.

The tricky part of voiceover production is that it should preserve the unique color of the title, and at the same time, consider the color of users in the target market. For the Korean dubbed version of <Vanguard>, we Musai studio put our best efforts to provide the best immersive play. Hope you enjoy both the great title <Call of duty: Vanguard> and the Korean voiceover!

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