After all that Troy Baker/Gearbox drama, here’s what Rhys actually sounds like in Borderlands 3

I’ll get straight to the point: after all the Troy Baker Borderlands 3 drama, we finally have footage of what Rhys actually sounds like in Borderlands 3. So now you can listen for yourself and see if you agree with Baker being somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t invited back to voice the former Hyperion employee, or you can just watch the video and focus on the overwhelming fact that good god, we’re actually getting Borderlands 3 after years of waiting. Just glance up to watch the clip above!

If this is the first you’re hearing about Baker’s beef with Gearbox, allow me to get you up to speed. A while back, the prolific video game voice actor spoke out about the first full Borderlands 3 trailer, saying that he wasn’t aware that Rhys (a character he played in Telltale’s Tales from the Borderlands game) was being brought back, since Gearbox allegedly hadn’t got him to reprise his role despite early discussions about the possibility. Cue understandable sympathy from the internet. 

Then Randy Pitchford tweeted out that apparently Baker had been offered the role, but turned it down - or so he was told by Borderlands 3’s Audio Director (who I bet was just thrilled to get dragged into this). Things heated up yet again when Baker said in an interview that he would “fact check before [he] tweeted out to the internet”, implying that Pitchford hadn’t got his facts straight. 

And now we’re here, basking in the fact that Borderlands 3 gameplay is finally in our mitts, while also getting to hear Rhys voice for ourselves. We’ll hold off from full judgement until we find out just how involved the Atlas CEO is in the sequel’s story but, uh, let’s just say you can certainly tell the new VO doesn’t emanate from Baker’s indistinguishable voicebox. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see how many hours it takes before Baker himself chimes in again...

Let us know what you think of Rhys’ new voice, plus here’s our Borderlands 3 preview and the 23 things it’s changed!

Zoe Delahunty-Light

While here at GamesRadar, Zoe was a features writer and video presenter for us. She's since flown the coop and gone on to work at Eurogamer where she's a video producer, and also runs her own Twitch and YouTube channels. She specialises in huge open-world games, true crime, and lore deep-dives.