A mainstream AAA game with *ambition*- isn't that against some law?
Anyhoo, here's the dealio. *If* you have on-the-ball game managers (I mean real managers, not the wasters most call managers), you can get the script and voice actor process under way from day one, and generate *obscene* amounts of voice work for a very modest cost. Handle this form of data well, and it is more than possible to fully voice *any* number of NPC's for a *vastly* lower cost than paying the royaltioes for a hand full of well known pop songs.
Say 200 NPC's fully voiced with full mission variants and real-time cut-scene seamless insert ability. All a matter of good project management. Yet never before witnessed in gaming history.
The one thing a AAA budget brings to the table is exactly this. Today the state-of-the-art is the sh-tty cut-n-paste world of AC:O (or AC:O) where you wanna slit your wrists (if your IQ makes at least high double digits) when you discover how conceptually empty and pointless and gameplay free these new Assasssin's Creed worlds are.
The challenge, taken on by ubisoft, is how to fix the AC:O problem. How to reliably generate data continuously across the dev lifetime of a project that actually adds *real* value to an open world game.
Watchdogs 3 looks like a good first step, and a *major* attempt to pre-empt the work in Cyberpunk and GTA VI.
An open world *worth* exploring. An open world with characters *worth* meeting. An open world with something constantly *new* to do- not the mega shit braindead wash-and-repeat of AC:O.
Keep dirty Hollywood agents and unions *out* of gaming, and voicework is highly affordable and pays well for the types of peeps who do it well (clue- not the whiny spoilt Hollywood brats). Likewise script writing for basic dribble ordinary NPCs might say- any basic competent writer can bang out this narrative free content.
This issue is simply one of time management. Getting the *millions* of words written by your teams of writers. Getting hundreds of voice recordings done in over-lapping waves, and getting all the recordings checked for correct quality as they are made. A *lot* of people all working at the same time- but this is how Hollywood gets so many of the amazing VFX work done- or animation for TV and screen.
AAA gaming has, all too often, been an utter joke of bad management. Churn where it is common for two years work to be *binned* when the dribbling managers discover it is garbage, and everyone starts over (how Bethesda works on anything 'open world'). But AAA gaming *must* grow up as budgets explode and game ambition explodes. The old amateur methods must be ended. Churn must end. Work done day one must end up in the finished game.
Meanwhile the usual mouthbreathers will tell us how 'crap' the whole thing looked. Imagine the pain game devs feel casting their pearls before the stoned/drunk sofa gaming crowd.