Scottish actor Alec Newman has inhabited countless incredible universes both on and off screen, having once played Dune protagonist Paul Atreides in Syfy's Emmy-winning 2000 miniseries before becoming a video game pro with roles in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Cyberpunk 2077, and Elden Ring, among many other major titles. But none of it compares to playing tough guy Kliff in open-world adventure Crimson Desert, he says.
Newman describes his time working with developer Pearl Abyss on Crimson Desert in a new interview with Fall Damage, providing interesting insight to why the notoriously stoic Kliff is so much like a piece of wood that occasionally deigns to speak. He says he thinks Pearl Abyss initially cast him for the character, who was originally named Macduff, mostly because the developer wanted "a Scottish lilt to Kliff's voice."
But even when the stone-faced Greymane was voiceless, Newman could tell just by "the render of Kliff's face and the way that he walked, [...] that he had to be a Scot." That led Newman to the sweet realization that Kliff looked a bit like his wife's recently passed stepfather, and so the actor decided that "Kliff's voice is basically his voice."
It's ultimately a lovely tribute. On one hand, Crimson Desert players often bring up its superficial story when criticizing the otherwise wildly successful game, and as part of this complaint, they wish Pearl Abyss had given Kliff a more original narrative than a strong man with a square forehead who stomps around the woods with a sword. But, most people agree, Kliff is also obviously softhearted, and they like that.
In a popular Reddit thread with over 1,000 comments debating why "Kliff is one of the worst AAA MCs in gaming history," for example (ouch), one highly-upvoted reply disagrees and says, "I like the dude. He's over here giving coins to beggars when he had zero to start with. And saving cats. What a nice dude."
"The game is beautiful," concludes Newman during his interview. "It's unlike anything I've ever been involved in, that's for sure." He later says, "If they asked me, I'd happily record Cliff forever." But, he admits, "there's a kind of irony in a character that's a little bit reserved recording for that amount of time."
