Voice actors don't always get the credit they deserve. Despite bringing characters to life and then representing games at events, they're sometimes treated as mere footnotes in the development process. A performer on Dragon Age: Inquisition credits two stars of Baldur's Gate 3 with helping to raise the status of such contributors across the board.
"Video game acting is, at times, hard, demanding, and also challenging, and it's also joyous, and it's filled with, literally, blood and sweat and tears, especially if you're on the [performance capture] stage," Alix Wilton Regan, who voiced the female Inquisitor in Inquisition, told GamesRadar+ at the BAFTA Games Awards. "So video game actors, they deserve their flowers, because we help pull the audience in to elevate the writing, the animation, the direction, the tone."
Truer words are rarely spoken. Voice actors give nuance and personality to the cast, deepening the narrative and creating a closer connection with the audience. They can, and often do, help elevate great games into masterpieces.
"I give a massive shout-out here to the Baldur's Gate 3 crew, because they were the ones who made all the other video game actors sit up and take note and realize, 'Yeah, actually, we are loved, our work does have value, and we too deserve to stand up and be counted,' Regan continues.
"I've literally said this to, like, Jennifer English's face, or Neil Newbon. I've been up to Ben Starr, and I'm like, 'You changed the game,'" she adds. Starr, ever the charmer, turned it around on her by pointing out that she voiced the Inquisitor, a huge role in a widely-regarded RPG.
Baldur's Gate 3 might be more pertinent to recent memory, but the third Dragon Age installment was the fantasy adventure du jour for a while there. It's hard to imagine any of these projects without these performers involved, and long may their success continue.
