This was already a thing back in the ‘90s. Several games had actors in them, it was a sign of the times because it hadn’t been done before. After the exuberance wore off we got more professional voice actors to do parts. Guess it’s back in style again.
I’d prefer them to converge from Baldur’s Gate 3 direction. Cast more or less established voice actors and give them the hype and marketing space usually found among movie/tv stars. “films and games converge” yea, when we treat a 200hour computer game the way we treat a long tv series and acknowledge the actors’ contribution on the same level.
I absolutely agree. Every single voice actor from the main party of BG3 was stellar (including the narrator), while J.K. Simmons seemed to be bored while recording his lines and Jason Isaacs was good but nothing extraordinary.
Ehhh. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Case in point: everyone loves Patrick Stewart. He played a small yet memorable role in Oblivion. No issues. Everyone loves Keanu Reeves, but as soon as CDPR wheeled him out to hype up CP2077 in 2019, I rolled my eyes because it was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the meme-able goodwill that Keanu had from all of the posts about him riding the subway and his wife dying and how he’s a genuinely nice person.
Idris Elba on the other hand, he’s a great actor, but he has the marketability of a tuna sandwich.
Put famous actors in games when it makes sense to do so. Otherwise it comes off as hacky and you run the risk of severely dating your game in 10 years. Idris Elba is just in too many things these days to take him seriously.
It’s no different than putting famous people in movie voice acting roles. If they can voice act well it works (Eartha Kitt as Yzma) but often it’s just a sad attempt at generating hype (Chris Pratt as Mario).
Speaking of aging, does anyone remember Kevin Spacey in Call of Duty? That aged well right gang!
Gotta monetise to the max that personal brand recognition!
(Whilst in a video game like that I do expect his work was proper acting rather than merelly being famous, he’s still the one there doing it for the big $$$ rather than somebody else because of brand recognition: as in my personal experience there are tons of just as good actors in Britain who simply are not widelly known, as Britain has a massive thing for Theatre thus good acting schools and lots of people going into performing arts).
We’ve had actors in videogames for as long as there’s been the ability to play samples at a high enough quality. Hell, the 90s FMJ era was full of them. Some good, some not so good.
this reeks like Keanu’s unwashed hair; an exec’s “great idea: what if we put the famous dude in our game, AGAIN?” because we are so thoroughly unconfident in our game’s gameplay that flavor of the month/year/decade will surely make up for it.
Mark Hamill is an accomplished VA in his own right. It makes sense that he’d eventually be in games. No one really cares that he used to be Luke Skywalker.
I’m not really a fan of real A-list actors’ faces in games. Inspired by real faces? Sure. I know the term “immersion” is mocked a lot, but few things force me back to reality than seeing Hollywood megastar multimillionaires in my fantasy world.
I have to agree. I always preferred an A class voice actor for a character that isn’t of celebrity likeness. Honestly hope this doesn’t become the norm.
Edit: I’d also like to add that Idris Elba is a phenomenal actor and I’m excited to play the expansion.
Pretty much this is how the metal gear series ended up losing my interest. I want a good voice actor rather than just celebrities. It’s enshittification.
I’m curious if you feel the same way watching movies? It’s not as if Idris Elba’s live-action movie roles depict “reality”. What is it about the presence of a real actor which breaks your immersion in games but not movies, or do you just feel similarly about both?
It’s not unusual to have big stars in movies. There are movies full of nothing but A-listers. It’s been the norm since before any of us were born. However, I find there are some big actors where their presence overshadows their character (if that makes sense). I do tend to enjoy movies with smaller actors that I haven’t seen quite as many times already.
When it comes to live action I do greatly prefer it when a great performance is from an individual I don’t recognize from previous works. So I don’t see oh it’s blank from X. I only have the reference of seeing only the character, which sells the immersion so much more.
And voice acting when it comes to animation and games has been an area like that where if a woman is voicing a boy, but the voice acting is good I only see the boy. Or someone voices a lovecraftian monster I only see that monster. Or someone who is a different race voices a different race it doesn’t matter because I only see the character and how well the voice suits the sculpted character like Kratos.
The best voice acting performances to me have been ones where I don’t recognize the voice actor. I only see the character, and due to voice acting providing the opportunity where how you look or what your original voice is doesn’t matter. It gives actors the chance to really disappear into a role, but then just showing up as themselves it feels like a lost opportunity.
Like one I think of is Kiefer Sutherland voicing Snake was something I like much more than Norman Reedus in Death Stranding. In MGSV I only saw the character of Snake not Kiefer Sutherland. In Death Stranding I just kept thinking oh hey it’s Daryl from Walking Dead, and I had to actively keep trying to disassociate the actor from the character.
I do look to be immersed in movies, and yes, massive actors are immersion breaking.
Tom Cruise, Idris Elba, Meryl Streep, Leonardo Dicaprio, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger (except Terminator 2), and Hugh Jackman. Can you actually watch these movies without thinking to yourself 99% of the time “wow, Tom Cruise looks cool af in that jacket”?
Yeah, what I’ve always liked about voice acting is that how the person looks or even what their original voice is like doesn’t matter. It’s purely about the voice which makes it much easier for the voice to take center stage, and it allows people to voice other genders, races, species, objects, etc.
This real life person being present as themselves is not a trend I’ve liked. Good voice acting to me has been one where I am emotionally moved by the performance but don’t automatically recognize the voice due to how well and unique the performance is. Plus, I don’t like more regular voice actors being pushed aside by a listers.
I know what you mean. I love JK Simmons voice, and he’s a great VA. But if I compare his role as Omni-Man in Invincible to Ketheric Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3, I definitely enjoy Omni-Man more, even though Ketheric is modelled after his real face.
It’s also pretty big immersion break when the va changes between installments, so the character model changes. Between Halo War 1 and 2, Professor Anders changed not only the specific person, but the ethnicity of the character.
For me it depends, if the game is a big bombastic hollywood esque block buster then cool, but I don’t see how Keanu benefitted 2077’s story in any way, no matter how much I love him
He didn’t. CDPR just knew that he had a lot of memes about how he’s a really nice and down to earth person, and they figured that that was the kind of good will they needed for their oft-delayed title that was earning them a lot of fury even before it launched.
Big, well known actors in video games have been a thing for a long time now? I remember games from the 90’s that had actors like James Earl Jones, Tim Curry, Bill Paxton, Randy Quaid, and so many more growing up.
What’s interesting is, it doesn’t seem like it’s expanded or shrunk. Most games don’t hire big actors, but a handful of huge budget, AAA things do. There’s also big range in how good these actors are in the game… JK Simmons, for example, was awesome as Cave Johnson in Portal; but his performance in Baldur’s Gate 3 is, by far, the worst in the entire game IMO.
It makes sense for those who are big enough in the Game Industry (which is now several times the size of the Movie Industry in terms of revenue) to try and do the same as movies and leverage that sweet brand recognition of celebrity actors to sell more copies of the game.
However I suspect it doesn’t work quite the same in practice as the “main character in the story” in games is almost invariably the player him/herself and those famous names will never be more than secondary characters with limited interaction possibilities.
They could do the cyberpunk or fallout 4 thing. Have Keanu Reeves in your head, or get someone known to voice the protagonist (only unlike fo4 in that the PC VAs are otherwise unknown afaik).
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