Barret Wallace Voice Pack (FFVII Remake)

"I’m here for you, to help take the load off your shoulders!"

Barret Wallace, freedom fighter and leader of the resistance group known as Avalanche, joins the fray. His aim: to help XCOM overthrow the tyrannical ADVENT administration once and for all.

A voice pack comprising around 750 unique lines, featuring Barret Wallace from the Final Fantasy VII Remake (2020). A "radio" effect has been applied to all lines of dialogue. Includes compatibility with WOTC faction hero classes. (SPARKs can be enabled through code that has been commented out.)

Barret is voiced by John Eric Bentley.

• Audacity
• Bulk Rename Utility
• Auslogics Duplicate File Finder
• regexr.com (invaluable for testing regular expressions; handy when renaming files in bulk)
• Winamp (still whips the llama’s ass)
• Photoshop (for editing Targa files)

OpenFFVIIR Discord Server[discord.gg]

Special shout-out to user jordanbtucker for providing the dialogue from FFVIIR. Saved me weeks (or even months) of work. Dialogue file dumps available here:

English[1drv.ms]

Japanese[1drv.ms]

XCOM 2 Modding Discord Server[discord.gg]

Barret character model added to XCOM 2 by Asthye.

This is my second voice pack for XCOM 2. As with my first attempt, I started off using zuff’s XCOM 2 Voice Pack Modding Tutorial V2 as a guideline for making this mod. However, I was dissatisfied with the end result, which involved too many instances of lines simply not triggering when they should be, as well as too many voice cue categories that didn’t appear to be in use at all. So I decided to do some digging. After resolving some weird technical issues, I finally got the Robojumper script to compile properly, and the end result was a much more stable, working voice pack. Unfortunately, this also meant having to redo a lot of the work that I’d already done, as well as a fair amount of brute-force testing to ensure that everything was working correctly. As for why it took me so long to get to this release, well… simply put, life got busy, hence the long gap between updates. With luck, the next one should arrive a little sooner. Meanwhile, I’m adding a few notes and dumping a bunch of resources here in the hopes that it might make some other modder’s life a little easier down the line.

Setting up voice cues for XCOM 2 can be tricky. Some categories are just plain bizarre or unintuitive (HealingAlly and StabilizingAlly are seemingly only used by regular soldiers with Medkits, but not Specialists?), and then there’s the following example. Hacking an ADVENT checkpoint (lamppost) results in these cues triggering:

1. AttemptingHack
[roll for success]
2. AttemptingHack (plays again, for some reason)
3. GenericHackSuccess/GenericHackFailed

Meanwhile, HostileVIP plays both when characters first spot a hostile VIP, and then lines from the same category play when you pick up their unconscious body. (Knocking them out doesn’t appear to result in any dialogue.)

The lesson here is that XCOM 2 suffers from having too much granularity for certain cues (such as the Hacking category), while not having enough for others (HostileVIP). After a good deal of engaging in the aforementioned brute-force method of checking which lines were firing (by creating a voice pack utilizing a plain text-to-speech reading of the name of each cue), I’ve managed to confirm that many of these oddities are indeed inherent to the game itself, rather than a result of modding discrepancies. Along with Robojumper’s script (which eliminates a good deal of unused voice cues) I’ve managed to come up with a new and clearer classification for said cues, which is included in the resources below. Which brings me to…

Robojumper’s script is extremely useful in generating a custom VoiceBank which seems to work far better and more consistently than the older methods of building voice packs. However, there are a few oddities in the original script, which is still floating around the internet (and referenced in various tutorials):

• "GenericHackFailed" and "GenericHackSuccess" are missing from the Used section of the original script
• "TargetKilled" and "PanicScream" occur in both the Used and Unused sections
• There’s a typo in the following line: //Events.Add((EventName="TargetSpopttedHidden"))
• Certain holdovers from XCOM 1, such as "PsionicsInspiration" have been replaced ("Inspire"), but still occur in the Unused section

All lines of dialogue used for this voice pack, with radio effect applied.[drive.google.com]

My (updated) version of the Robojumper script[drive.google.com]

Used to generate a custom, combined VoiceBank/Archetype. (The YouTube guide listed above uses the older method of creating two separate objects from the game’s built-in resources. The result is usually janky.)

Voice cue category folders[drive.google.com]

For easier sorting of lines of dialogue, based on Robojumper’s new "taxonomy". Includes spreadsheet explaining when various cues trigger.

Text-to-speech Audio Files[drive.google.com]

Useful for testing and debugging voice cues.

SoundCue generators[drive.google.com]

Since creating new SoundCue objects typically slows the UE editor to a crawl, I’ve included the following empty .wav files for auto-generating them. Simply right-click the UPK’s content window, select Import, and group-select all these files. Ensure that the "Auto generate SoundCue" option is enabled. Pick "Ok to All". Finally, delete (force) the empty audio files. Easy.

The good news is this: After extensive testing and debugging, I finally have a "pipeline" for making voice packs such as this one, so hopefully the next one won’t take nearly as long. I’m currently sifting through lines of dialogue for Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie. I’ll possibly make a voice pack for Jessie as well, if there’s enough dialogue for me to work with. Last, but not least, I’m planning on rebuilding Cloud’s voice pack from scratch using these new methods once the other voice packs are ready to go. The line selection is solid, IMO, but the mod isn’t working quite as smoothly as it should be.

As for other characters from the Remake, I don’t have any plans on adding anyone else just yet. It’s doubtful that any of them have speaking roles large enough for me to make a satisfying voice pack for them right now. Maybe once Rebirth is released.

In the meantime, if you’re experiencing any problems with this mod, please let me know. Be sure to leave detailed feedback so I can attempt to replicate and fix the issue. Cheers, and happy gaming!

"For real, though, we need to talk victory poses."