It's been announced that a dedicated voice pack will be available for Star Wars: Squadrons this year, meaning that we won't have to memorise all those keyboard shortcuts and there'll hopefully be a familiar voice telling us our targeting computers have been switched off.
In development at HCS VoicePacks as a paid accompaniment for the popular VoiceAttack app, it's not been announced who'll be providing the talent, although we can assume that it'll be someone from the cast of at least one of the movies. Harrison Ford is unlikely to star, of course, but the likes of Ian McDiarmid or Anthony Daniels might be up for some headphone banter if the price is right.
Famous for getting actors from classic sci-fi into a recording studio and saying things like "affirmative" and "double dumbass on you" is pretty much what HCS VoicePacks exists for. Once all the lines are down on tape or whatever, their engineers then match the lines with command shortcuts from Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen. The idea is that instead of moving the throttle with your hand, players can just say "half impulse" and not only will the command be carried out (by VoiceAttack) one of the ageing cast of Star Trek will respond in kind (via their respective Voice Pack).
Although I don't play Elite Dangerous as often as I'd like, and still less with VoiceAttack running in the background, I'm happy to say I have quite a few voice packs installed. William Shatner's is an obvious favourite, just because there's just as much of Transformed Man-era Shatner to enjoy as there is of old man Kirk. The acerbic performance of the sadly departed Paul Darrow is equally brilliant, especially if you're a fan of the perpetually-underwhelmed Avon, his alt-Spock character from Blake's 7.
Voice packs have tended to be quite tricky to set up and maintain, but in doing so offer a surprisingly diverse set of interactions that go way beyond giving simple orders. Indeed, if you have enough of them, you can prompt the members of your crew to talk amongst themselves for a while. Given the scope and pace of Star Wars: Squadrons, I doubt the same will be true of its voice packs, which hopefully means that without having to record thousands of lines, a stellar cast might be more within HCS's budget.
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