Idris Elba, who stars in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, sees a future where films and games converge.
Kristen Bell was in Assassin’s Creed II and that was 14 years ago… Fuck I feel old.
But still, it’s been slowly happening for quite a while
There have been a lot of borderline stunt castings over the years. Patrick Stewart was in like 30 seconds of TES4 and Sean Bean was in about 10 minutes of it. Hell, Bruce Campbell was in all of Tachyon: The Fringe (which is like the fifth best space dogfighting game ever).
But they were largely wasted. Kristen Bell… she is spectacular within a narrow range and “generic girl in the chair” is not it. And then there was the (alleged?) contract dispute that led to her being a baddy that gets killed off real fast. And that was largely the case. It was “get a b/c-tier actor/actress and find out that voice acting is very different than camera acting”
In more recent years we started to see a big emphasis on VAs doing the motion cap as well and Christopher “Teal’c” Judge made Kratos “I moved to a non-extradition treaty pantheon” of Sparta into a woobie. And people very much underrate how good of a job Camilla Luddington and a few other performers have done over the years.
But… we still have shit like Rosario Dawson in Dying Light 2 where “okay… she was there?”.
For its many many many many many flaws and problematic aspects, I think CDPR did an amazing job with their “stunt casting” for Cyberpunk. Because Keanu knocked it out of the park (when he wasn’t just talking about his magnificent cock) and everything I have seen of Idris Elba’s performance is similarly good.
And it kind of does mark a paradigm shift. Because it is no longer getting David Hyde Pierce to do a cameo as a camp gay counselor or a snooty over the top version of Niles. It is more like getting Ted Danson because you need a character who can simultaneously be a sleazy asshole and also the kind of person you just want to open up to and tell all your problems. It isn’t the kind of performance that you get for a single episode of sweeps week or to make people tune in even after your lead actor fucked off. It is the kind of performance you build a show/movie around.
Sean Bean also voices most of Civ 6 and it’s glorious. Say what you will about it from a mechanical perspective but I can’t find fault with his voice lines. He gets to read some of the greatest quotations from history and for the most part he nails it.
Leonard Nimoy did civ 4
Might just be me enjoying Nimoy in most everything, or maybe ta just that Civ 4 is still the best of the series, but I really liked his lines in that one.
Lots of memorable ones but “the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy” always sticks out as one of my favorites.
“Beep… Beep… Beep…” -Sputnik
Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean were both in Oblivion. here’s the thing for me, they were playing characters who were not meant to look like the actors.
I often see people shit on Keanu Reeves for wooden acting in Cyberpunk, but I honestly thought he was great as Johnny. Knocked it out of the park imo
The problem is that he really IS wooden and obnoxious for basically the entire first two acts or so. It isn’t until you have that conversation outside the motel (?) that he is allowed any range.
And… that is also around the time the game falls off massively in terms of quality. It isn’t quite Obsidian levels of “We ran out of money” but it definitely shows what they spent time on and what they just had to get working to release.
Which sucks because that is actually when they delve into the character of Johnny (particularly WHY he hates Arasaka so much) and you start having actual conversations with him… unless it is a side mission where they all default to antagonistic first hour mode.
I mostly agree with this. I really enjoyed the more insightful, introspective Johnny and there wasn’t enough of it. With that being said, I’m a few hours into Phantom Liberty and it seems that we get a lot more of the meaningful conversations with Johnny.
Really? I thought he nailed it too.
TESIV Oblivion is 2006, Tachyon The Fringe is 2000… 1994’s Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger has a whole IMDB page, with the likes of Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell playing main characters.
And there’s earlier games with less stellar casts, like 1991’s Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum. Actors in games have been a thing for quite a while.
Sean Bean was in Oblivion, that’s even older.
Patrick fuckin Stewart was in it as well but he dies in the tutorial.
Batman Begins (2005) had an all-star voice cast from the movies:
- Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman
- Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth
- Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard/Ra’s al Ghul
- Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes
- Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow
- Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone
- Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
- Tim Booth as Victor Zsasz
- Mark Boone Junior as Detective Arnold Flass
- Ken Watanabe as Ra’s al Ghul (decoy)
Bruce Lee was in Bruce Lee in 1984, if you really want to get down to it. And he wasn’t even the first.
He’s also in civ 6 but I know that’s newer. I just love his soothing voice
Oblivion is TESIV.
Matthew Perry was Benny from FO: New Vegas
Ron Perlman provided opening and closing narration for all the numbered Fallout games.
And Fallout 1 was very much a “budget” title for Interplay, so it’s not like the studio was just splashing money around because they could.
And before that, Liam Neeson was the player character’s father in FO3.
This kind of thing has been going on for at least 30 years. One of the earliest examples is Night Trap starring Dana Plato. You may not know who that is, but anyone who grew up watching Diff’rent Strokes certainly does. If you want a more mainstream example, look at Ripper from 1996 which features Christopher Walken, Paul Giamatti, Karen Allen, Burgess Meredith, David Patrick Kelly, Ossie Davis, and John Rhys-Davies.
Wing Commander III a 1994 release had Mark Hammill, Malcolm McDowell , and Tim Curry. Video game actors , voice actors and mainstream actors have intertwined for many years.
And John Rhys-Davies!
Who was also in Dune 2000
TIL!
Removed by mod
coughKeith Davidcough
I mean Keith David has been a huge voice actor for a long time.
Oh I know. Just mentioning him cause he’s a badass. Just finished Mass Effect trilogy for like the 6th time so he’s fresh in the noggin.
Keith Davids sultry tones will be welcome in any game no matter what the context.
Doki Doki Keith David Club?
I’m not digging those repressed memories up to know what you’re talking about.
How did they miss that!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Not op, but I don’t look to be immersed in movies, they’re just something to pass time.
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”?
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.
I feel like it generates interest and helps the medium gain more mainstream acceptance at a minimum.
Lol. Mark Hamill was far ahead of the curve.
Some of the best performances in some of the best ever games.
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.
That union vote came at just the right time then, huh.
all of his work for the game would have been finished months ago by now
sign of the times
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.
Who starred in a 90s FMV game that was anywhere near as big as Keanu or Idris?
Shatner for one, who at the time was arguably still the most-recognizable name in sci-fi TV and movies.
Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell (among others) in Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger (1994), for instance…?
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).
I’m playing Toonstruck at the moment. Christopher Lloyd was one of the early pioneers acting in computer games, and he gives everything! The game is so much fun!
Tim Curry in Red Alert
23 will always be the classic thoughSPACE
SBPASE
3*
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.
Mark Hamill in Wing Commander III, released in 1994.
With Malcolm McDowell and John Rhys-Davies.
Popular actors in cyberpunk 2077 are the worst part of it IMO, I’d much rather have those characters sport a face I haven’t seen a thousand times.
I personally wouldn’t put much stock in his opinion since he seems to know very little about video games.
He knows a fair bit about acting for big budget movies and acting for (AAA) videogames though.
Idk if I like this. Wouldn’t having big famous Hollywood actors and actresses screw over the industry for a lot of people? Which sucks because just because they’re actors, it doesn’t mean they can voice act - Megan Fox did a character in the new Mortal Kombat and she gave the most wooden performance in recent memory; Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 was kind of odd at times, but it was still okay.
I just don’t want these big names invading a space that’s already hard to compete in, and then taking all the jobs because of star power and not their actual talent.
I think Keanu Reeves is great in Cyberpunk 2077
Yeah for real. I think Johnny Silverhand is my favorite Keanu role of all time
Eh, actors and actresses have been in games foe decades just like they have done voices in animated films for decades. Both cases tend to only attract big names to a few games and this reads like the usual ebb and flow of interest from a limited number of people and gaming companies.
Yes, but usually not as themselves, so they were hired on the quality of their voice performance. So lot of times you don’t recognize it is them, which is really what you want from a performance where you really just see the character and not the actor performing.
But, with more of their actual likeness being put in games instead of an opportunity to truly disappear into a role it can lead to their presence overshadowing the character they are playing. Which is a shame to me since it’s a medium where an actors actual voice or appearance doesn’t have to matter like live action does.
E.G. the newfound celebrity of the BG3 VAs as they run around on social media. If it was some Hollywood big shot, the likelihood that we’d have the High Rollers one-shot from them in nill.
Then we wouldn’t have the glory that is Shadowheart and Bing-Bong, or Astarion lapping blood from a glass like a cat.
I agree with your point but imo Johnny Silverhand is Keanu’s best work.
Back in 2007 Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi from Star Trek TNG) did the most phoned-in performance for Mass Effect, meanwhile other VA’s were running circles around her.
It’s been around for a bit.
I agree. Plus it will make them even more expensive if they’re full of star studded casts like all animation movies nowadays. Just let normal voice actors act.
Seeing as the games industry makes more than movies I wouldn’t be surprised if more actors don’t exclusively go towards acting in games. It pays well I think and typically the work schedule is better I believe(someone confirm or deny this?). I’d love to see more actors on the games side and not as PR stunts.
Nah man, having to act every time someone starts playing the game must get pretty old fast.
Could you imagine getting the alert that someone just installed your game fifty years later?
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!
