You read the headline right. A new RDO mod called Relationship Dialogue Overhaul for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim adds 5,000 lines of voiced dialogue for various types of NPCs, which includes 50 different voice types, and expands the dialogue options, responses and interactions to the game.
Modder cloudedtruth led the charge in bringing this mod to life, utilizing the help and other mods from over a dozen other mod authors. There is an extensive amount of work applied to this mod and it really helps breathe some new life into Skyrim, as especially in terms of bringing out a more immersive feeling of interaction with the game world.
According to cloudedtruth, this does not replace any of the dialogue in the game already, it just expands on the dialogue, explaining on the description page…
“RDO primarily focuses on changing the dialogue used by NPCs based on their relationship towards the player. It doesn’t completely change all of the dialogue in the game, it just adds more dialogue for NPCs to use, and fixes some dialogue that should not be used in certain situations.
“99.9% of the new dialogue added by RDO is not restricted to specific NPCs. It can be used by any NPC with a certain voice type, original or NPCs from other mods.”
What’s more is that cloudedtruth took the time to completely splice, reintegrate and modify some of the spoken lines in order to create new lines of dialogue.
In addition to the new lines, some of the dialogue is simply unlocked from the game’s files. For some reason Bethesda had plenty of dialogue locked away in Skyrim and cloudedtruth frees it like gonads under a loin cloth. You can check out an example of one of the freed lines of dialogue with the video below.
This doesn’t just apply to quests and random NPCs, it also makes a vast difference to the NPCs you have an established relationship with. Cloudedtruth explains…
“Friends talk to you more like friends. Followers have more much to say when speaking to them. If your spouse is a follower, he/she will talk to like a spouse instead of a generic follower. NPCs who dislike you (not bandits and forsworn, but citizens of towns and cities) will have more insults to say and may even completely stop talking to you if you continue to pester them.”
This actually addresses one of the biggest complaints and criticisms about the immersion factors of Skyrim that a lot of gamers had.
After getting married to a spouse there was that reality that they acted like a cardboard cutout with no personality, and with these dialogue options players may feel as if there’s a real spark there instead of a marriage that seems manufactured… like the one that was stitched together between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
The RDO mod also went through extensive testing and thorough bug checking, so all of the dialogue – all 5,000 lines – feel natural and organic to the play-experience.
Now before you get too excited and jet off to download the Relationship Dialogue Overhaul mod, keep in mind that you will need a full copy of Skyrim, the latest update for the game, and the Dawnguard and HeathfireDLC, along with the Dragonborn.esm. Those are listed as “hard requirements”. Your game will crash if you attempt to use the mod without those loaded in a specific order.
In fact, you will need to load very specific files and patches in specific orders when installing and loading up the Relationship Dialogue Overhaul. Be sure to check out the full installation notes when you head on over to the Nexusmods download page to grab a copy of the dialogue enhancement mod for Skyrim.
