Guild Wars 2

The first episode of season 3 is missing FaceFX lip sync animations for many of its dialogue lines. While a seemingly random selection of dialogue lines in the first instance – “Eir’s Memorial in Hoelbrak” – as well as the second instance in Rata Novus – have FaceFX lip sync generated, the vast majority do not, and instead rely on the standard ‘lip flap’ system. While I would normally assume that this is intended behaviour (i.e. the conscious decision not to use FaceFX lip sync for this content), the fact that a few random lines of dialogue have proper lip sync and some do not, seemingly at random, leads me to believe that this is, in fact, a developmental oversight.

The random nature of the lip sync in the new content can be easily observed in the Eir memorial instance. During the sequence in which the player character toasts to Eir, one random line of player dialogue, mid-way through the sequence of dialogue lines, uses FaceFX lip sync, immediately before and immediately after an extensive sequence of lines relying entirely on lip flaps. (Tested on a male charr player character, therefore I can only be certain that the issue is 100% reproducible in this dialogue sequence on male charr PCs due to the difference in dialogue and VO – the issue is, however, present in Rytlock’s dialogue, Knut’s dialogue, Rox’s dialogue, Taimi’s dialogue in Rata Novus, and the vast majority if not all of the dialogue in the later story instances).

On a more subjective note, this greatly hurts the immersion in this content and is rather distracting. It’s also a notable departure from the consistent use of FaceFX lip sync observed in Heart of Thorns and the three raid wings, which greatly improved the immersion and visual fidelity of that content. I’m assuming that the living world team simply forgot to generate the lip sync on these dialogue lines, leading to this issue – either way, I figured I should report it so it can be investigated and addressed.