Upcoming young stars Dakota Blue Richards and Freddie Highmore voice their characters for The Golden Compass, SEGA’s official videogame of the highly anticipated film.

The Golden Compass sees Lyra, voiced by Dakota Blue Richards, travel through the frozen wastes of the North collecting items in order to explore, evade and deceive her way to rescue a friend kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as The Gobblers. Speaking about voicing the videogame Dakota commented “I do find it quite difficult but I find it also fun, in the same way that I found doing the green screen stuff fun [on the film set].” Dakota was picked from 1000’s of hopefuls who auditioned for the part in the film and this is her first major role.

Lyra can also use her daemon, Pantalaimon, to collaborate with in-game characters and to help her get through certain difficult situations. Voiced by Freddie Highmore, who starred as Charlie Bucket, in the 2005 version of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, this is not Freddie’s first voice over role; “I have performed voiceover work in the past. To convey the essence of a character you’ve got to believe in it and I think you have to get in to the character, because if you don’t believe in it no one else will.”

Gamers can also play as Iorek Byrnison, a great armoured ice bear who joins the quest, battling to protect Lyra during their journey using his special attacks to fend off enemies. Players will also be able to unlock secrets and mini-games using a mysterious truth-telling golden compass device called an Alethiometer.

The Golden Compass videogame is releasing on PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS & PSP later this year.