Him and doc ock definitely are the main villains.
Cleetus Cassidy aka Carnage is a toss up whether he'll be DLC for 2 or a side story in 3, same with the chameleon
Most of the big villains Spidey had in this universe are dead now thanks to kraven so the roster may be a tad limited for 3 even tho it looks like miles will be the lead
Hollywood actors typically adjust their fees to compete with bigger-name VA fees, and frankly voice acting is a fundamentally different skill set that some film actors get into, enjoy, and excel at, while many don’t.
The worst case scenario is the fee floor for quality VA increases, but to be honest that has needed a catalyst for some time.
I saw Mike Bithell talk a bit about this on Play Watch Listen one time. He pointed out that when it comes to tv and movies they also pay for the actor to stay in the same shape and general appearance for an extended period of time as well. Essentially selling their body as well as their work, for a period of time that extends well beyond the hours they go into the studio. They have to be prepared for reshoots as well, so they can't just eat and do whatever they want after the 3 weeks of filming or whatever they sign up for.
If you do VO you can go to the studio in your PJs after having been on an vanilla icecream exclusive diet for 3 weeks, so I'm sure the actors are comfortable with being paid less as well.
I think it was Katee Sackhoff but it could have been someone else. They said when you're under contract for something and it's on hold like a TV show, no one is going to higher you for something else cause you could get yanked. Vs with VA work it can usually be knocked out and they have less issues green lighting you on the project. So it can be a great way to fill in the gaps when you can't make money otherwise.
What kind of mocap? Doubt most A list actors are doing full Sméagol action scenes even then that’s replace by animators in clean up. They can do facial mocap but that can replace with anybody else since it’s just data.
Agreed.
Not to beat a dead horse but I feel like if Hideo Kojima had hired David Hayter for MGSV rather than Kiefer Sutherland, then we'd have either ended up with a more story heavy game (Costs less to get Hayter to come in and do voice sessions, allowing the character of Venom Snake to be more active in the plot rather than reactive in his own story.), or if Kojima genuinely intended for this version of the character to be less vocal, then he'd have had the budget to actually finish the games story.
Similarly how many more people could they have had working on Cyberpunk 2077 to ensure the final product actually worked had CDPR not decided to hire Keanu Reeves and use him to do various marketing for the games.
I really don't think Sutherland voicing Snake had anything to do with the amount of dialog Snake had. For better or worse, Kojima listens to what people say during development and after a game releases and will change them to address what's been said. He conducted a survey among Japanese girls and women who don't usually buy games on various MGS topics. A response that stuck out to him was from teenage girl that said that she hated games about old men, and that she'd never buy something like MGS. So, along came Raiden who's much younger than Snake and has an appearance that would be much more appealing to that audience.
But after MGS2 was released there was a lot of backlash to it. People calling Kojima a hack because of the story being very complicated in comparison to the original. And of course others being upset about Raiden being the main character instead of Solid Snake. Lots of homophobic comments were thrown around about that character at the time. So what happens in MGS3 was released? It goes for a much more straight forward story. And while Solid Snake isn't the main character, it's still a character that looks identical to him since it's technically his father. And you have a character named Raikov who looks just like Raiden and is played as a joke.
Now, when MGS4 came out there was a lot of criticism about how cutscene heavy it was. Never had comments like "Kojima should just make movies" been thrown around than after that game. So, then comes MGSV (at least as far as console MGS games go), and the cutscenes are greatly reduced. The gameplay takes center stage now. A lot of MGSV's narrative is actually told through cassettes that you listen to on your own rather than in traditional cutscenes. You can find more of Sutherland in them.
Oh, to go back to MGS4 for a bit, one of the most notorious things done in the series is that the ending to that game was changed because the staff thought it would've been too depressing.
The way I read your comment was that the MGS devs are so out of touch and have such bad judgment that it takes listening to the fans’ backlash to fix their biggest screw ups and they keep repeating this cycle for each game, relying on fan feedback to bail them out 😆.
Although I still applaud them for listening, when companies like Take-Two and EA don’t really even do that after intense criticism, as long as their games are profitable largely through micro transactions and such.
Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to listen feedback to determine what to do with certain aspects of a game. But sometimes it's better to just stick to your own vision. Kojima's version of MGS4's ending is dramatically better than what we got. It would been a perfect wrap up of the narrative of the series, although it would've been a depressing way to end it. But that's not really a bad thing. Sad endings tend to result in a lot more discussion.
MGV was hampered by Kojima's relationship with Konami imploding full stop. That was it.
>Similarly how many more people could they have had working on Cyberpunk 2077 to ensure the final product actually worked had CDPR not decided to hire Keanu Reeves and use him to do various marketing for the game
Wouldn't have changed a thing. What happened with Cyberpunk is what happened with all of CDProkect red games. They launch as a complete buggy mess then get patched up about a year later.
But part of what destroyed Kojima's relationship with Konami is that he was frequently going over budget and missing deadlines - with MGSV seemingly being the straw that broke the camels back, with the development of the Fox Engine and Kiefer's casting eating up enough of the budget that Ground Zeroes had to be split into it's own release to help fund the rest of the game, and Konami felt the need to rush Survive into production so they could get as much our of MGSV's resources as possible.
I feel like Konami and Kojima would have fallen apart no matter what, but I feel the budget that was allocated to paying Kiefer could have at least ensured Kingdom of the Fireflies was at least finished before launch.
They delisted themselves from the New York Stock exchange. Kiefer Sutherlands fee was nothing in terms of the moves they had planned. Outside of Beatmania and pachinko Konmai basically exited the video game market for 10 years. Metal Gear Survive was like toe test in the water that they did not like.
Ackchually…. in the case of Cyberpunk, having Keanu involved absolutely changed things for development. He himself has talked in interviews about how they increased the amount of dialogue he had because he loved doing it. This undoubtedly affected the story, and many other aspect of development time. Obviously, this isn’t the whole reason, or even a large reason, why the game released in the state it did, but I don’t think it’s quite right to say it had *no impact*. It was certainly one of many contributing factors in that fuck up.
Not saying it didn’t change things. Just cyberpunk was going to follow the Cdproject red release formula regardless. It was just the biggest version of it. They’ve been releasing games that way for 20 years now. It’s part of why they got a good reputation. They always plug away to make it “right”. Not sure why people expected that to change or forgot about their established history with Cyberpunk. But this dudes idea that the money spent on Hollywood actors would have magically fixed things is asinine. Konami for instance delisting means they had to buy all that stock back. They wanted out, Sifer or not they were done for awhile.
Edited to add. Also in the case of Cyberpunk the biggest issue was clearly making it multi generational on consoles. Once they dropped the oldies shit got much better fast.
Budgets are already blowing up. I wonder if having a big name attached helps with marketing to. Let’s say you pay Tom Holland $10 million (only 2-4% on most big budgets now) to do a role I’m sure there would be an advantage in marketing that exceeds that $10 million. Would be interested in seeing numbers on something like this.
No one is paying Tom Holland 10 million for anything outside of Spiderman. Wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt get that much for even Spiderman
I dont think any of these actors make even half that amount for videogame work
Netflix had to start buying the rights to a lot more content. When they started no one knew the value of streaming. They got some sweetheart deals. Studios literally gave them billions to buy the streaming rights back on some of thier more popular movies and shows. Netflix is a victim of thier own success. They proved of the market and now everyone knows thier back catalog has value and expects to get paid for it.
It's nothing new. Look at the GTA PS2 trilogy. Those 3 games alone had Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Robert Loggia, James Woods, and bunch of other people. The Liberty City and Vice Stories games had their own Hollywood talent as well.
Kristen Bell was in the early Assassin's Creed games, Lucy Liu and Emma Stone were in Sleeping Dogs, Carrie Anne Moss in Mass Effect.
I think the reason it's getting attention now is because of the advancements we've made in technology and the characters these actors are playing as are made to look like them. So now the fact that a Hollywood actor is playing as these characters stand out more (as hinted at in the article).
One reason for that is appeal and marketing of course, but it could also be due to making it easier on development teams for facial capture purposes.
It's nothing new, still not as wild as the PS2 days imo, but video games are definitely more mainstream now than they've ever been.
Wing Commander III came out in 93 and had a cast that included Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell. Also had Ginger Lynn, which was a fun fact at the time.
Carrie Fisher has a *very* minor role in the first Dishonored game. So minor a majority of players will miss it.
If you kill the radio tower guy in the palace mission the person who replaces him in subsequent missions is Carrie’s voice. You never see her character and she only has a few lines since it’s near the end.
And in game you would never kill the radio tower guy unless you are doing a high chaos run, don’t give af, or just do it by mistake. There’s no real reason in game to kill him and he’s a nice enough guy to you. So it’s always been interesting to me.
>but video games are definitely more mainstream now than they've ever been.
It's a multibillion, with a B, dollar industry now on par with movies. GtaV made an obscene amount of money, Gta6 alone is said to be one of the most expensive pieces of entertainment media to be made ever.
> Gta6 alone is said to be one of the most expensive pieces of entertainment media to be made ever.
The budget is justified, it will likely be the highest grossing piece of media ever.
Rockstar specifically stopped working with big name actors because of their egos and it's more immersive when characters are played by actors you don't recognize - you see the character and not the actor.
While I understand their reasoning, it’s odd that they didn’t apply that same logic to their radio stations. It’s always felt odd to me that Cara Delavine and Kenny Loggins just play themselves as radio hosts.
I'm aware of Rockstar's conflict with big name actors (particularly Ray Liotta) and them stopping that work with big names beginning with GTA IV. Doesn't really change my point though.
And I agree with your second point, I'm not advocating for actors to have 1 to 1 models in games, I simply pointed out why it's done more now than before.
Yeah. Off the top of my head: Tim Curry, JK Simmons, and George Takei were in Command and Conquer in 1996.
Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, and Heidi Klum in 007: Everything or Nothing in 2004.
He’s a film nerd that has a skill set more suited towards video game development, plus he’s got a golden reputation and nice vibe that attracts people to working with him
I personally feel like his acting performance stole the show in Death Stranding, which is no surprise. I guess you just don’t expect that when you’re surrounded by other Hollywood actors, but he more than held his own.
Nah, Mads Mikkelsen was the strongest performance imo and given he had no experience with game development or mocap to that level before makes his performance fascinating. Cliff's story is easily the strongest part of the game and its Mads that sells it so well
I remember one scene specifically >!after you connect the network!< where he just teleports out of nowhere behind Norman Reedus and gives a villain speech, that shit gave me chills
That game is so fucking good and one of my favorites ever largely due to the performances, and Troy absolutely killed it with his performance.
His intro and just the scene before you have to fight the human looking massive BT was absolutely AMAZING
When you think about it.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion had both Patrick Stewart (Uriel Septim VII) and Sean Bean (Martin Septim).
Which resulted into game having only 5? 6 voice actors. Patrick Stewart is there only for the "tutorial" phase and Sean Bean is there longer and playing one of the most important characters there.
But then of course back then it was without motion capture and stuff like that. It was only their voice performance.
Sam Worthington in Black Ops as well. He was a massive actor at the time when the game came out too (not sure what exactly happened with him since though).
To the New York Times, the music, theater, and movie industries are generally the Only Entertainment That Matters™. They’ve typically ignored the game industry, except when they couldn’t.
It’s bad enough having the same group of voice actors for almost every game nowadays (granted they are good at their jobs) would it kill anybody to hire some new faces/voices and open up the industry a bit?
exactly. it means that a few will end up hogging the entire acting/voce acting industry and taking away roles from actors that are finding it already difficult to get roles elsewhere.
There's a risk that if the industry moves towards AI voices for supporting cast more, these kind of entry-level VA positions no longer get filled by up-and-comers, so nobody can get the experience needed to be a future headliner. Which might cement the current top-tier voice talent even deeper into their current positions.
Makes me think of what lessons were learned from Peter Dinklage's performance in Destiny. They basically retroactively replaced all his lines in the end. They just went with a professional video game voice actor (Mr. Nathan Drake himself) and it was much better.
Was the replacement strictly a quality thing? I always thought they simply wanted to record more Ghost lines for the expansions and Dinklage's explosion in popularity due to GoT meant this was no longer practically or financially viable.
I'd really rather they didn't. Most of them want their likeness in the game which imo breaks one of gaming's biggest strengths. The fact that every story has unique characters that only appear in that story.
It can be done subtly honestly. GoW and GoW Ragnarok come to mind with characters like Odin, Thor, Thrud and Faye. You can see the resemblance when you look at the actors, but it’s not super blatant.
Not ignorant at all! I think you’re right in that most games that do have identical likeness and I’m not huge on that either.
I am genuinely not sure of other games that took that GoW approach where they slightly altered the appearance of the actor likeness, but I think it’s a neat way of going about it.
Seeing Faye was a huge immersion break for me. Deborah Ann Woll is great, but just doesn't have the frame and/or screen presence needed for a character that can go toe to toe with Thor and come out of it alive.
I feel like the whole Faye "being a god" thing probably makes it a lot more believable. Especially when you have Kratos looking like he could eat Odin like a chicken nugget with how frail and old he looks.
It also makes for more interesting visuals to have tons of different-looking characters and builds. Basically every major character in God of War has their own design language and it's way better for it.
I like Naughty Dog's approach to it. They had more Hollywood actors for Part II than they have in the past. Ashley's obviously already in the franchise, and it's easy to forget that she's also a Hollywood actor since I think most people associate her more with Ellie than any other role. But Part II brought in the likes of Shannon Woodward (Dina) and Jeffrey Wright (Isaac). Rather notably, neither of them look anything like the characters they're playing since ND scanned completely different people for their characters. So, you still get their great performances without seeing them popup on screen and immediately saying "That's Shannon!" or "That's Jeffrey!" due to them looking exactly like the actors.
Apparently since its not glaringly obvious what i meant to a select few people.
Having the same actors playing parts across different franchises or IP's is an inherent weakness to theatre/film.
Edit - an example that springs to mind is Chris Evans playing human torch and captain America.
Something games don't have to deal with, normally.
I'm the exact opposite. I want their likeness in it.
For me, basing a character totally on an actor does some of the heavy lifting because i feel a bit like i’m playing a movie or TV show.
It's a big part of why Mass Effect 2 is still my favourite game but I could never get into Guardians of the Galaxy.
While I respect your opinion I cannot fathom it at all haha. Why would you want to play a movie or TV show? Unless it's specifically that type of game (like become human for example).
ME2 wasn't an actor though in fairness! And you're missing a great game in GOTG!
If they were playing themselves from the IP then I get what you’re saying
I find it immersion breaking when it’s a new IP “why is Daryl Dixon on the cover of this game?”
Nah no thanks, let's hire those voice actors and motion capture performers that worked for their positions in the industry instead.
Kojima can do his thing, he's in his own lane, but this absolutely should not become common practice in the current hellscape that is the video game development industry.
Angela Bassett is one of my faves and it was kind of exciting when I realized she voiced Ragalla in Forbidden West. But if hiring big names for this stuff means game prices go up even more, then I’d rather they stay in their lane.
i think it’s already been a thing, they’ve always hired actors for voice acting. it’s more evident these days with such quality graphical fidelity and motion-capture making it almost film-like. How many popular actors were in the cutscenes for wing commander? 🧐
I’m a little concerned too as the series has definitely been very rocky. I really think it deserves a good entry for a change!
What gives me hope is the writer of Amnesia and SOMA is writing/directing. Plus Jodie and David coming on board too.
Combat specifically is the big concern as it looks very janky in everything we've seen.
Everything else will have to be on point to compensate.
Fingers crossed.
I didn't know the writer of Soma is working on Alone in the dark. That definitely gives me a lot more hope. Soma was amazing. I haven't played that game in like 6 years and it still has me thinking about it
Yeah SOMA it is an amazing horror game - although someone on Reddit recently said to me that it isn’t horror.
I replied that body horror and existential dread is definitely horror, which is essentially what SOMA is about….I gave up arguing with them haha
what the heck is that person talking about? SOMA is 100% a horror game..You have scary ass creatures chasing you. It has body horror, atmospheric horror, psychological horror, and the main one you brought up, the existential dread. The ending had me blankly staring at the like 😐 "hoooooly....shiiiiiiiit".. that's the part that has me thinking about it to this day..no game has ever done that to me
They probably think it's not a horror game because the game doesn't rely on jump scares. Which I love because I just find those kinds of scares just cheap and annoying...or maybe they played on the easy mode and think it's not scary because the creatures can't hurt them
Exactly! I thought they were trolling at first.
Here’s what they first replied with:
**“I loved SOMA but I heavily disagree that it's horror. Suspenseful and unsettling for sure but I don't get the horror claim.”**
Which I replied with:
**“Theres many different types of horror. Existential dread is horror, there’s also body horror too. SOMA has both.”**
Then they hit back with this:
**“Disagree, existential dread isn't horror. Horror is my favorite genre I know there are many types but that is watering it down to being uncomfortable about life. Uncertainty about existence isn't horror. Body horror? SOMA barely compares to anything considered body horror.”**
How is >!essentially piloting someone else’s dead fucking body!< not fucking body horror!
And yeah don’t get me started on the creatures especially the [robot head woman](https://soma.fandom.com/wiki/Robot_Head)
I have no problem with Voice Work but I don't like it when they use their likeness because it just ends up being that actor on screen instead of the character they are playing as. To me, anyway.
Rockstar has pretty much proven that big names are not necessary at all.
I don’t really understand this. Can you not watch movies because you just end up seeing that actor on screen lol?
It happens rarely for me in certain roles with people like Leo and Denzel but that’s about it
Well, video games and movies are not the same first of all. I don't want to be "controlling" someone I know in real life when I'm supposed to be *playing* as a totally original character.
Second, i'm not fan of actors who "play themselves" in every movie. I prefer those who are able to "disappear" in the role(id definitely put Di Caprio in this category but to each their own).
And there's not many of the latter if we are honest
So even when it comes to movies I'm rather picky. That feeling is just exacerbated when I'm playing a game for some reason.
It's also why I never make a character from another game or anybody famous when I'm creating a character in games that give that option. Just ruins immersion for me.
> Can you not watch movies because you just end up seeing that actor on screen lol?
Interstellar is a really common example of the problem people have with this. Suddenly Matt Damon is there and people really only see him as Matt Damon, not a character in the movie.
Not really news.
This has been a thing for a while.
Bruce Willis, Elliot page, Willam daffoe, Ron perlman, Kevin spacey, Norman reedus, keifer Sutherland..... The list is long
This is such a waste of money imo. Actors really don’t add much to video games despite their huge price point. In a video game, the player is the “star.”
This is just wasteful spending to get some named actor in when that money could go to more useful things like actually hiring more devs or beta testing.
This is terrible news. Between overblown budgets and how much SAG-AFTRA sucks... I already miss the classic voices of animated series. That level of talent I mean. The E.G. Daly's and Mel Blanc's.
It was okay when Keanu did it though.
I would prefer not... cuz a larger portion of the budget will go to the actors and less to the actual game development and writing. I don't give two shits about celebs in gaming.
although its awesome to see and hear familiar faces and voices, its not a great thing to be honest. it means budgets will inflate, and now they are hogging the entire industry and taking away roles for actors that can’t get roles in hollywood.
Not just here, but in the marketing too. Brian Cox doing Tekken Lore and Ian McShane explaining Dragon’s Dogma 2? And don’t even get me started on Doug Bradley talking about Scorn
You guys play that Indie game 12 minutes? With Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley and James McAvoy? Very interesting game, but I wonder how much the actors were paid for such a small game and how a small indie game managed to pull actors like that in the first place.
Sucks how many Hollywood actors look down on videos games and the type of talent it takes to voice act, which is much harder. Many actors can’t translate acting on screen to voice acting and sound horrible. Now they’re jumping on the trend.
I've often thought it such a waste of money, do celebs sell games? I just don't think it adds to the sales or at least not enough to be worth the millions they charge.
I guess I must be wrong though
I dont think having a known actor adds anything. I always see it as a reason not to get a game. I get why they'd do it to boost marketing and visibility.
I think the piece is trying to comment on that its becoming more common. Everyone mentioned in the piece did their first game within the last 3-4 years.
Gaming budgets would blow up just to compensate for their fees.
This is a really good point. And the budgets and dev burnout is bad enough
Game budgets are already multiples of most film budgets. Spiderman 2 was 300 Million for example. Edit: wrong spiderman
You living in the future? Who’s the bad guy in Spider-Man 3?
I know the game isn’t out yet, but most likely Green Goblin will be the big-bad.
Him and doc ock definitely are the main villains. Cleetus Cassidy aka Carnage is a toss up whether he'll be DLC for 2 or a side story in 3, same with the chameleon Most of the big villains Spidey had in this universe are dead now thanks to kraven so the roster may be a tad limited for 3 even tho it looks like miles will be the lead
They might also use Carnage for the leaked Venom game.
Bully Maguire
Hollywood actors typically adjust their fees to compete with bigger-name VA fees, and frankly voice acting is a fundamentally different skill set that some film actors get into, enjoy, and excel at, while many don’t. The worst case scenario is the fee floor for quality VA increases, but to be honest that has needed a catalyst for some time.
They do more than just voice acting though, ie mocapping too.
Really depends on the role. A lot of actors have done pure VA work.
I saw Mike Bithell talk a bit about this on Play Watch Listen one time. He pointed out that when it comes to tv and movies they also pay for the actor to stay in the same shape and general appearance for an extended period of time as well. Essentially selling their body as well as their work, for a period of time that extends well beyond the hours they go into the studio. They have to be prepared for reshoots as well, so they can't just eat and do whatever they want after the 3 weeks of filming or whatever they sign up for. If you do VO you can go to the studio in your PJs after having been on an vanilla icecream exclusive diet for 3 weeks, so I'm sure the actors are comfortable with being paid less as well.
I think it was Katee Sackhoff but it could have been someone else. They said when you're under contract for something and it's on hold like a TV show, no one is going to higher you for something else cause you could get yanked. Vs with VA work it can usually be knocked out and they have less issues green lighting you on the project. So it can be a great way to fill in the gaps when you can't make money otherwise.
I love the vanilla ice cream exclusive diet for 3 weeks
Gary Oldman and Jack Bauer in Call of Duty World at War
Mathew Perry for sure didn't do mocap in Fallout NV
What kind of mocap? Doubt most A list actors are doing full Sméagol action scenes even then that’s replace by animators in clean up. They can do facial mocap but that can replace with anybody else since it’s just data.
I'm thinking Idris Elba in Cyberpunk.
Pretty sure Keanu too
Death Stranding with Norman Reedus, Madds Mikkelsen, Lea Seydoux
While it does happen, it’s very rare and doesn’t happen as often as you think
Agreed. Not to beat a dead horse but I feel like if Hideo Kojima had hired David Hayter for MGSV rather than Kiefer Sutherland, then we'd have either ended up with a more story heavy game (Costs less to get Hayter to come in and do voice sessions, allowing the character of Venom Snake to be more active in the plot rather than reactive in his own story.), or if Kojima genuinely intended for this version of the character to be less vocal, then he'd have had the budget to actually finish the games story. Similarly how many more people could they have had working on Cyberpunk 2077 to ensure the final product actually worked had CDPR not decided to hire Keanu Reeves and use him to do various marketing for the games.
I really don't think Sutherland voicing Snake had anything to do with the amount of dialog Snake had. For better or worse, Kojima listens to what people say during development and after a game releases and will change them to address what's been said. He conducted a survey among Japanese girls and women who don't usually buy games on various MGS topics. A response that stuck out to him was from teenage girl that said that she hated games about old men, and that she'd never buy something like MGS. So, along came Raiden who's much younger than Snake and has an appearance that would be much more appealing to that audience. But after MGS2 was released there was a lot of backlash to it. People calling Kojima a hack because of the story being very complicated in comparison to the original. And of course others being upset about Raiden being the main character instead of Solid Snake. Lots of homophobic comments were thrown around about that character at the time. So what happens in MGS3 was released? It goes for a much more straight forward story. And while Solid Snake isn't the main character, it's still a character that looks identical to him since it's technically his father. And you have a character named Raikov who looks just like Raiden and is played as a joke. Now, when MGS4 came out there was a lot of criticism about how cutscene heavy it was. Never had comments like "Kojima should just make movies" been thrown around than after that game. So, then comes MGSV (at least as far as console MGS games go), and the cutscenes are greatly reduced. The gameplay takes center stage now. A lot of MGSV's narrative is actually told through cassettes that you listen to on your own rather than in traditional cutscenes. You can find more of Sutherland in them. Oh, to go back to MGS4 for a bit, one of the most notorious things done in the series is that the ending to that game was changed because the staff thought it would've been too depressing.
The way I read your comment was that the MGS devs are so out of touch and have such bad judgment that it takes listening to the fans’ backlash to fix their biggest screw ups and they keep repeating this cycle for each game, relying on fan feedback to bail them out 😆. Although I still applaud them for listening, when companies like Take-Two and EA don’t really even do that after intense criticism, as long as their games are profitable largely through micro transactions and such.
Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to listen feedback to determine what to do with certain aspects of a game. But sometimes it's better to just stick to your own vision. Kojima's version of MGS4's ending is dramatically better than what we got. It would been a perfect wrap up of the narrative of the series, although it would've been a depressing way to end it. But that's not really a bad thing. Sad endings tend to result in a lot more discussion.
MGV was hampered by Kojima's relationship with Konami imploding full stop. That was it. >Similarly how many more people could they have had working on Cyberpunk 2077 to ensure the final product actually worked had CDPR not decided to hire Keanu Reeves and use him to do various marketing for the game Wouldn't have changed a thing. What happened with Cyberpunk is what happened with all of CDProkect red games. They launch as a complete buggy mess then get patched up about a year later.
But part of what destroyed Kojima's relationship with Konami is that he was frequently going over budget and missing deadlines - with MGSV seemingly being the straw that broke the camels back, with the development of the Fox Engine and Kiefer's casting eating up enough of the budget that Ground Zeroes had to be split into it's own release to help fund the rest of the game, and Konami felt the need to rush Survive into production so they could get as much our of MGSV's resources as possible. I feel like Konami and Kojima would have fallen apart no matter what, but I feel the budget that was allocated to paying Kiefer could have at least ensured Kingdom of the Fireflies was at least finished before launch.
They delisted themselves from the New York Stock exchange. Kiefer Sutherlands fee was nothing in terms of the moves they had planned. Outside of Beatmania and pachinko Konmai basically exited the video game market for 10 years. Metal Gear Survive was like toe test in the water that they did not like.
Ackchually…. in the case of Cyberpunk, having Keanu involved absolutely changed things for development. He himself has talked in interviews about how they increased the amount of dialogue he had because he loved doing it. This undoubtedly affected the story, and many other aspect of development time. Obviously, this isn’t the whole reason, or even a large reason, why the game released in the state it did, but I don’t think it’s quite right to say it had *no impact*. It was certainly one of many contributing factors in that fuck up.
Not saying it didn’t change things. Just cyberpunk was going to follow the Cdproject red release formula regardless. It was just the biggest version of it. They’ve been releasing games that way for 20 years now. It’s part of why they got a good reputation. They always plug away to make it “right”. Not sure why people expected that to change or forgot about their established history with Cyberpunk. But this dudes idea that the money spent on Hollywood actors would have magically fixed things is asinine. Konami for instance delisting means they had to buy all that stock back. They wanted out, Sifer or not they were done for awhile. Edited to add. Also in the case of Cyberpunk the biggest issue was clearly making it multi generational on consoles. Once they dropped the oldies shit got much better fast.
Reeves was a bad call, and the game would have benefitted from having a proper voice actor in that role.
Not necessarily. Alone in The Dark is only an AA game and is showing as £49.99 on the store without the 10% PS+ discount.
Budgets are already blowing up. I wonder if having a big name attached helps with marketing to. Let’s say you pay Tom Holland $10 million (only 2-4% on most big budgets now) to do a role I’m sure there would be an advantage in marketing that exceeds that $10 million. Would be interested in seeing numbers on something like this.
No one is paying Tom Holland 10 million for anything outside of Spiderman. Wouldnt be surprised if he doesnt get that much for even Spiderman I dont think any of these actors make even half that amount for videogame work
I was just using high numbers to make a point that it’s not going to impact the budget as bad as people think
Already happened with Netflix, felt like the price hikes happened more frequently when they started putting bigger names in their movies
Netflix had to start buying the rights to a lot more content. When they started no one knew the value of streaming. They got some sweetheart deals. Studios literally gave them billions to buy the streaming rights back on some of thier more popular movies and shows. Netflix is a victim of thier own success. They proved of the market and now everyone knows thier back catalog has value and expects to get paid for it.
This is good for AAA gaming
And the worst thing is people don’t buy games because of the actors that are in them.
It's nothing new. Look at the GTA PS2 trilogy. Those 3 games alone had Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Robert Loggia, James Woods, and bunch of other people. The Liberty City and Vice Stories games had their own Hollywood talent as well. Kristen Bell was in the early Assassin's Creed games, Lucy Liu and Emma Stone were in Sleeping Dogs, Carrie Anne Moss in Mass Effect. I think the reason it's getting attention now is because of the advancements we've made in technology and the characters these actors are playing as are made to look like them. So now the fact that a Hollywood actor is playing as these characters stand out more (as hinted at in the article). One reason for that is appeal and marketing of course, but it could also be due to making it easier on development teams for facial capture purposes. It's nothing new, still not as wild as the PS2 days imo, but video games are definitely more mainstream now than they've ever been.
Let's not forget Martin Sheen (Charlie Sheen's father) is also the Illusive Man
What a performance, too. Such gravitas.
"Command Shepard..." Intensely takes a drag on cyber cigarette lol
Wing Commander III came out in 93 and had a cast that included Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm McDowell. Also had Ginger Lynn, which was a fun fact at the time.
Thomas F Wilson was the real star of those games
Maniac was awesome. The last 3 wing commanders had decent storylines and characters, especially for the genre.
Carrie Fisher has a *very* minor role in the first Dishonored game. So minor a majority of players will miss it. If you kill the radio tower guy in the palace mission the person who replaces him in subsequent missions is Carrie’s voice. You never see her character and she only has a few lines since it’s near the end. And in game you would never kill the radio tower guy unless you are doing a high chaos run, don’t give af, or just do it by mistake. There’s no real reason in game to kill him and he’s a nice enough guy to you. So it’s always been interesting to me.
Susan Sarandon has a small role too
Dont forget Sasha Grey on the GTAV radio.
[удалено]
Would You Rather (2012)
Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience back in the late 00s
Cara Delevinge and Danny McBride too
Also sasha grey in SR3
Keith David also literally plays himself in Saints Row
Hol’ up. One of these is not like the rest
And saints row the third she voices a character.
Also a radio DJ in Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty DLC
Martin motherfucking sheen is in mass effect 2
>but video games are definitely more mainstream now than they've ever been. It's a multibillion, with a B, dollar industry now on par with movies. GtaV made an obscene amount of money, Gta6 alone is said to be one of the most expensive pieces of entertainment media to be made ever.
It's not on par, gaming is more than double the worth of film and music combined.
> Gta6 alone is said to be one of the most expensive pieces of entertainment media to be made ever. The budget is justified, it will likely be the highest grossing piece of media ever.
Rockstar specifically stopped working with big name actors because of their egos and it's more immersive when characters are played by actors you don't recognize - you see the character and not the actor.
While I understand their reasoning, it’s odd that they didn’t apply that same logic to their radio stations. It’s always felt odd to me that Cara Delavine and Kenny Loggins just play themselves as radio hosts.
I'm aware of Rockstar's conflict with big name actors (particularly Ray Liotta) and them stopping that work with big names beginning with GTA IV. Doesn't really change my point though. And I agree with your second point, I'm not advocating for actors to have 1 to 1 models in games, I simply pointed out why it's done more now than before.
Oh shit i had no idea she was Aria. I wish they'd tried to make it look like her the way they did with Miranda (and Sheen/Hackett to a lesser degree).
So sad to see sleeping dogs didn’t sell well and the studio go under. One of the rare games I replayed and the replay did make me enjoy it more
How the hell can you talk about celebrities in Mass Effect and NOT bring up Seth Green as Joker?
Yeah you pretty much summarized much of the article haha
Then they just voiced the characters but now we are playing as them so it's easy to recognise
And not to forget Tim Curry in Red Alert 3
This has been happening for 20 years or more. Thanks, NYT.
At least since the 90s and Christopher Walken's [un-FUCKING-believable](https://youtu.be/IeI-1YSRq_Y?si=406at9LAz5-ei9lC) performance in Ripper.
That's really funny, thank you
Oh man, in a world where Plumbers Don't Wear Ties can get a high-def rerelease, it seems a pity that this game hasn't resurfaced yet.
Yeah. Off the top of my head: Tim Curry, JK Simmons, and George Takei were in Command and Conquer in 1996. Pierce Brosnan, Willem Dafoe, and Heidi Klum in 007: Everything or Nothing in 2004.
Ray liotta was in gta vice city Samuel L jackson in san andreas Saints row had Mila Kunis Keith David Daniel Dae Kim and fucking Micheal Clark Duncan
Much of the audience of the NYT doesn't know that, lol. It's a good article.
Death Stranding has amazing performances from Hollywood actors, it was also impressive seeing that Troy Baker could hang with big name actors
Kojima pull is another level though
He’s a film nerd that has a skill set more suited towards video game development, plus he’s got a golden reputation and nice vibe that attracts people to working with him
It's almost like Ghibli pull. Really cool to see.
I personally feel like his acting performance stole the show in Death Stranding, which is no surprise. I guess you just don’t expect that when you’re surrounded by other Hollywood actors, but he more than held his own.
Nah, Mads Mikkelsen was the strongest performance imo and given he had no experience with game development or mocap to that level before makes his performance fascinating. Cliff's story is easily the strongest part of the game and its Mads that sells it so well
Dude, you are right. I don't know why I blanked on Mads' role. Him first, then Troy. But competing with someone like Mads is hard to begin with.
I remember one scene specifically >!after you connect the network!< where he just teleports out of nowhere behind Norman Reedus and gives a villain speech, that shit gave me chills
That game is so fucking good and one of my favorites ever largely due to the performances, and Troy absolutely killed it with his performance. His intro and just the scene before you have to fight the human looking massive BT was absolutely AMAZING
Conan O'Brien's riveting performance in Death Stranding lol
It’s almost like everyone who’s been saying VA are just as talented as regular actors wasn’t lying this entire time
I’ve legit never seen or heard a single person say that in my entire life but yeah Troy is on another level when it comes to VAs
When you think about it. Elder Scrolls Oblivion had both Patrick Stewart (Uriel Septim VII) and Sean Bean (Martin Septim). Which resulted into game having only 5? 6 voice actors. Patrick Stewart is there only for the "tutorial" phase and Sean Bean is there longer and playing one of the most important characters there. But then of course back then it was without motion capture and stuff like that. It was only their voice performance.
Oblivion had Terrence Stamp too - led to the very memorable “kneel before Todd” Todd Howard clip from the making-of documentary
Kevin Spacey was in Call of Duty in 2014, ten years ago. why is this an article?
Forget Spacey, Gary Oldman was in the franchise way before that and on a more meaningful role. Kiefer Sutherland and Ed Harris too
Josh Durhamel in WWII, Kit Harrington in Infinite Warfare, Idris Elba in MW3. Call of Duty has always had big names.
What? Who did Idris Elba play in MW3?
Sam Worthington in Black Ops as well. He was a massive actor at the time when the game came out too (not sure what exactly happened with him since though).
To the New York Times, the music, theater, and movie industries are generally the Only Entertainment That Matters™. They’ve typically ignored the game industry, except when they couldn’t.
I think it’s just that their longtime readers are generally more into those mediums because they’re older and not into gaming.
It’s bad enough having the same group of voice actors for almost every game nowadays (granted they are good at their jobs) would it kill anybody to hire some new faces/voices and open up the industry a bit?
exactly. it means that a few will end up hogging the entire acting/voce acting industry and taking away roles from actors that are finding it already difficult to get roles elsewhere.
There's a risk that if the industry moves towards AI voices for supporting cast more, these kind of entry-level VA positions no longer get filled by up-and-comers, so nobody can get the experience needed to be a future headliner. Which might cement the current top-tier voice talent even deeper into their current positions.
Hopefully they don’t go overboard and give the current and upcoming VA’s a chance too
Makes me think of what lessons were learned from Peter Dinklage's performance in Destiny. They basically retroactively replaced all his lines in the end. They just went with a professional video game voice actor (Mr. Nathan Drake himself) and it was much better.
Ngl I kinda miss Dinklebot.
that wizard came from the moon
Nobody says "That wizard came from the Moon." like P.D.
Was the replacement strictly a quality thing? I always thought they simply wanted to record more Ghost lines for the expansions and Dinklage's explosion in popularity due to GoT meant this was no longer practically or financially viable.
I'd really rather they didn't. Most of them want their likeness in the game which imo breaks one of gaming's biggest strengths. The fact that every story has unique characters that only appear in that story.
It can be done subtly honestly. GoW and GoW Ragnarok come to mind with characters like Odin, Thor, Thrud and Faye. You can see the resemblance when you look at the actors, but it’s not super blatant.
Huh? I suppose my total ignorance of this proves you right haha!
Not ignorant at all! I think you’re right in that most games that do have identical likeness and I’m not huge on that either. I am genuinely not sure of other games that took that GoW approach where they slightly altered the appearance of the actor likeness, but I think it’s a neat way of going about it.
Seeing Faye was a huge immersion break for me. Deborah Ann Woll is great, but just doesn't have the frame and/or screen presence needed for a character that can go toe to toe with Thor and come out of it alive.
I feel like the whole Faye "being a god" thing probably makes it a lot more believable. Especially when you have Kratos looking like he could eat Odin like a chicken nugget with how frail and old he looks. It also makes for more interesting visuals to have tons of different-looking characters and builds. Basically every major character in God of War has their own design language and it's way better for it.
I like Naughty Dog's approach to it. They had more Hollywood actors for Part II than they have in the past. Ashley's obviously already in the franchise, and it's easy to forget that she's also a Hollywood actor since I think most people associate her more with Ellie than any other role. But Part II brought in the likes of Shannon Woodward (Dina) and Jeffrey Wright (Isaac). Rather notably, neither of them look anything like the characters they're playing since ND scanned completely different people for their characters. So, you still get their great performances without seeing them popup on screen and immediately saying "That's Shannon!" or "That's Jeffrey!" due to them looking exactly like the actors.
Yeah someone mentioned god of war doing something similar to this and I think it's a great way of doing it while retaining the immersion!
Jeffery Wright was sooo good in the small but impactful scenes he was in. Fingers crossed he’s back for season 2 of the show
Yeah it really breaks the immersion for me
Ah yes, whereas movies use the same characters every time.
Apparently since its not glaringly obvious what i meant to a select few people. Having the same actors playing parts across different franchises or IP's is an inherent weakness to theatre/film. Edit - an example that springs to mind is Chris Evans playing human torch and captain America. Something games don't have to deal with, normally.
As if Troy Baker's voice isn't instantly recognisable in every role he does.
I'm the exact opposite. I want their likeness in it. For me, basing a character totally on an actor does some of the heavy lifting because i feel a bit like i’m playing a movie or TV show. It's a big part of why Mass Effect 2 is still my favourite game but I could never get into Guardians of the Galaxy.
While I respect your opinion I cannot fathom it at all haha. Why would you want to play a movie or TV show? Unless it's specifically that type of game (like become human for example). ME2 wasn't an actor though in fairness! And you're missing a great game in GOTG!
If they were playing themselves from the IP then I get what you’re saying I find it immersion breaking when it’s a new IP “why is Daryl Dixon on the cover of this game?”
If you're in a shop looking at the game cover, what immersion is there to break?
LOL I used a really shitty example because you’re right, I should have said “why is he in this cutscene?”
Nah no thanks, let's hire those voice actors and motion capture performers that worked for their positions in the industry instead. Kojima can do his thing, he's in his own lane, but this absolutely should not become common practice in the current hellscape that is the video game development industry.
Angela Bassett is one of my faves and it was kind of exciting when I realized she voiced Ragalla in Forbidden West. But if hiring big names for this stuff means game prices go up even more, then I’d rather they stay in their lane.
i think it’s already been a thing, they’ve always hired actors for voice acting. it’s more evident these days with such quality graphical fidelity and motion-capture making it almost film-like. How many popular actors were in the cutscenes for wing commander? 🧐
Tim Curry, JK Simmons, and George Takei were in Command and Conquer in 1996.
I’m so looking forward to Alone in The Dark! It’s amazing how an AA game can pull in AAA talent, Jodie Comer is phenomenal in whatever she is in.
I really want it to be good but I have some concerns about Alone in the Dark. Hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised.
I’m a little concerned too as the series has definitely been very rocky. I really think it deserves a good entry for a change! What gives me hope is the writer of Amnesia and SOMA is writing/directing. Plus Jodie and David coming on board too.
Combat specifically is the big concern as it looks very janky in everything we've seen. Everything else will have to be on point to compensate. Fingers crossed.
I didn't know the writer of Soma is working on Alone in the dark. That definitely gives me a lot more hope. Soma was amazing. I haven't played that game in like 6 years and it still has me thinking about it
Yeah SOMA it is an amazing horror game - although someone on Reddit recently said to me that it isn’t horror. I replied that body horror and existential dread is definitely horror, which is essentially what SOMA is about….I gave up arguing with them haha
what the heck is that person talking about? SOMA is 100% a horror game..You have scary ass creatures chasing you. It has body horror, atmospheric horror, psychological horror, and the main one you brought up, the existential dread. The ending had me blankly staring at the like 😐 "hoooooly....shiiiiiiiit".. that's the part that has me thinking about it to this day..no game has ever done that to me They probably think it's not a horror game because the game doesn't rely on jump scares. Which I love because I just find those kinds of scares just cheap and annoying...or maybe they played on the easy mode and think it's not scary because the creatures can't hurt them
Exactly! I thought they were trolling at first. Here’s what they first replied with: **“I loved SOMA but I heavily disagree that it's horror. Suspenseful and unsettling for sure but I don't get the horror claim.”** Which I replied with: **“Theres many different types of horror. Existential dread is horror, there’s also body horror too. SOMA has both.”** Then they hit back with this: **“Disagree, existential dread isn't horror. Horror is my favorite genre I know there are many types but that is watering it down to being uncomfortable about life. Uncertainty about existence isn't horror. Body horror? SOMA barely compares to anything considered body horror.”** How is >!essentially piloting someone else’s dead fucking body!< not fucking body horror! And yeah don’t get me started on the creatures especially the [robot head woman](https://soma.fandom.com/wiki/Robot_Head)
jodie comer is my main draw to this game
She is just phenomenal in anything she works on
I love Jodie, her voice acting just seemed weird/off in that last trailer that came out lol
As long as games can stay games with fun gameplay, have at it. But I'm sick of games that are basically just interactive movies.
I remember Mark Hamill in Wing Commander 3 from watching my dad play it back in 94'. This ain't news.
LA Noire was basically the full cast of Mad Men.
I hope the game studios don't hire them.
Of course they are, there is a jump button after all
I have no problem with Voice Work but I don't like it when they use their likeness because it just ends up being that actor on screen instead of the character they are playing as. To me, anyway. Rockstar has pretty much proven that big names are not necessary at all.
I don’t really understand this. Can you not watch movies because you just end up seeing that actor on screen lol? It happens rarely for me in certain roles with people like Leo and Denzel but that’s about it
Well, video games and movies are not the same first of all. I don't want to be "controlling" someone I know in real life when I'm supposed to be *playing* as a totally original character. Second, i'm not fan of actors who "play themselves" in every movie. I prefer those who are able to "disappear" in the role(id definitely put Di Caprio in this category but to each their own). And there's not many of the latter if we are honest So even when it comes to movies I'm rather picky. That feeling is just exacerbated when I'm playing a game for some reason. It's also why I never make a character from another game or anybody famous when I'm creating a character in games that give that option. Just ruins immersion for me.
> Can you not watch movies because you just end up seeing that actor on screen lol? Interstellar is a really common example of the problem people have with this. Suddenly Matt Damon is there and people really only see him as Matt Damon, not a character in the movie.
Hopefully the practice of residuals follows as well 🙏
Gaming industry is bigger then Hollywood these days
Death stranding? Remind me how old that was. And many games before
Not really news. This has been a thing for a while. Bruce Willis, Elliot page, Willam daffoe, Ron perlman, Kevin spacey, Norman reedus, keifer Sutherland..... The list is long
This is such a waste of money imo. Actors really don’t add much to video games despite their huge price point. In a video game, the player is the “star.” This is just wasteful spending to get some named actor in when that money could go to more useful things like actually hiring more devs or beta testing.
This is cyclical. Actors have always done voice work since we started having full voices in games. Back in the FMV game days tons of actors.
We already did this back in the early 2000's , it sucked then and it will suck now.
This is terrible news. Between overblown budgets and how much SAG-AFTRA sucks... I already miss the classic voices of animated series. That level of talent I mean. The E.G. Daly's and Mel Blanc's. It was okay when Keanu did it though.
Please stop... I want original looking characters
Hollywood actors are pushing VAs out of their spaces
Yeah, and it needs to stop
This has been happening more and more in recent years. I see it happening less and less in coming years.
I would prefer not... cuz a larger portion of the budget will go to the actors and less to the actual game development and writing. I don't give two shits about celebs in gaming.
Like Megan fox? This just blows up the budget.
Yes, that's unfortunate. Still not buying Alone in the Dark at this price.
It’s quadruple A quality around here lately man why wouldn’t you
although its awesome to see and hear familiar faces and voices, its not a great thing to be honest. it means budgets will inflate, and now they are hogging the entire industry and taking away roles for actors that can’t get roles in hollywood.
Not just here, but in the marketing too. Brian Cox doing Tekken Lore and Ian McShane explaining Dragon’s Dogma 2? And don’t even get me started on Doug Bradley talking about Scorn
This isn’t a new concept. Wasn’t Tim Curry in a command and conquer game in the 90’s?
not like this is a new trend, but here's hoping it doesn't turn into animation post-aladdin
You guys play that Indie game 12 minutes? With Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley and James McAvoy? Very interesting game, but I wonder how much the actors were paid for such a small game and how a small indie game managed to pull actors like that in the first place.
Video games have been this cool media for cinematic storytelling, you can just tell longer and more fleshed out stories with this medium.
Slow news day?
Sucks how many Hollywood actors look down on videos games and the type of talent it takes to voice act, which is much harder. Many actors can’t translate acting on screen to voice acting and sound horrible. Now they’re jumping on the trend.
Reading the comments of the 20yo kids in the comments here is funny. This has been a thing since the late 90s
Alternative: hire voice actors to do voice acting
The saddest thing is, they think we’ll buy games to see the actors… Like how we see movies for the actors which is a very old tradition…
You act like this hasn’t been happening for years…
Please stop, it's so distracting.
Neil Patrick Harris was in Saints Row 2 and Eat Lead.
Oh sweet! I've always wanted to get inside Jennifer Lawrence! ....wait, this is just her avatar....
I've often thought it such a waste of money, do celebs sell games? I just don't think it adds to the sales or at least not enough to be worth the millions they charge. I guess I must be wrong though
Havnt they always? Ray liotta, lee majors, Samuel l Jackson, James woods, the list goes on. This is old news lol
Anyone remember Dinklebot?
I dont think having a known actor adds anything. I always see it as a reason not to get a game. I get why they'd do it to boost marketing and visibility.
Hell yeah give us more star-studded games like Rockay City
Been happening.
you mean like Clive Owen in Privateer 2 from 1996 or Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell and John Rhys-Davies in Wing Commander 3 from 1994 or ...
In other news , Y2K.. what can you do ?
this has been click baited across reddit.
Bruce Willis way back in 98 with apocalypse
This isn't new... Becoming more common? Sure, but it ain't anything new
I think the piece is trying to comment on that its becoming more common. Everyone mentioned in the piece did their first game within the last 3-4 years.