Cave Johnson.. Love J.K Simmons work overall but Cave was perfect.
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Some of my favorites:
- GLaDOS from Portal 1+2: Ellen McClain did such a fantastic job balancing a monotonous robotic tone with human emotions and adding subtle glitches to show not everything was 100% alright. She defined what a female robot voice should sound like for that decade. I saw that Stephen Merchant was mentioned and while his performance was good and Wheatley's character was hilarious, I think McLain's performance as GLaDOS was more original and memorable.
- Narrator from The Stanley Parable: Kevan Brighting was arguably the protagonist of the game and the player was the annoying mob to him. As the only chacter with dialogue in the entire walking sim game, he had to carry almost the entire game's story, personality, and charm all through his voice. And it's honestly so fun how disappointed, annoyed, and exasperated he gets when the player refuses to listen.
- The Joker from Batman Arkham Asylum: This one is cheating cause Mark Hamill has played The Joker in almost every modern animated medium available. Still, there's a reason his version is so iconic. It's just so bittersweet that he refuses to ever voice The Joker again since Kevin Conroy, the VA for his Batman passed away.
Edit: After reviewing my list, it seems like I like offscreen narrators who insult the player. How funny
Getting the animated series actors to voice the Arkham games was a stroke of genius, though.
The Joker reveal in Arkham City was also some brilliant writing carried through by Hamill's amazing voice acting: https://youtu.be/GvZTjWpuuKw?t=63
I enjoyed having him follow me around throughout Arkham Knight too.
Ellen McClain did such a good, iconic job that she landed herself a role in Pacific Rim as the computer in Gipsy Danger.
Didn't know that. That's pretty cool!
Yeah, Del Toro specifically asked for her in that role.
Also shout-out to wikipedia sources helping me find an article to support my claim.
https://kotaku.com/how-glad0s-is-glad0s-in-pacific-rim-pretty-glad0s-636252650
The whole cast of Team Fortress 2.
I haven't played that game in over a decade, yet if I read any of the lines from the game, I'll still hear their voices loud as day. Even just seeing the word "medic" and I hear Demoman screaming it.
"POOTIS PENCER HERE"
There's not a week goes by where I don't wish Expiration Date got a sequel.
Arthur Morgan in Red Dead 2
Rockstar games have some pretty spectacular stories and acting and they're just getting better, ever since GTA IV/RDR/LA Noire. RDR2 was one of the most heartbreaking and melancholy stories I've ever been told, game or otherwise. It's a different genre, of course, but I have high hopes for GTA VI.
Vaas from Far Cry 3.
This scene is always such a treat: https://youtu.be/rKMMCPeiQoc
Also Alan Tudyk Stephen Merchant in Portal 2.
Edit: Was just recently watching something with Alan in it and got them mixed up 😅
You mean Stephen Merchant in Portal 2
Dionysus in hades. Dude amps me up so well I pick him over boons I like better.
Nearly everyone in Hades and Hades 2 have awesome voice actors. I'm particularly fond of Zagreus & Skelly from 1 and Melinoë, Hephaestus & Odysseus from 2. Great game and the VAs kick ass.
One of the best villains I can remember from a game, Handsome Jack in Borderlands 2. Maybe he was just written so well, but he was amazing.
Narrator in Bastion. Just glorious.
How has Baldur's Gate 3 not been mentioned in this thread yet? Huge cast and everyone is going for it. Even the narrator. Especially the narrator.
I want a mod that makes Ron Howard the narrator in bg3
All I really want is BG3 mechanics in a Discworld setting.
I want a mod for everything that just makes Morgan Freeman narrate it all.
Hell, that's kinda the only voice I want to hear if we ever have Ai speaking to us.
I agree she is amazing, but Andrew Wincott's Raphael is just so phenomenal, for me it'll only ever be him.
Outside of BG3, I guess I would also say Claudia Black, Jennifer Hale and Lenval Brown (the narrator of Disco Elysium, he is so good!).
Check out the BG3 narrator outtakes on YouTube.
It makes me wish for a version of the game where she is actively snarking the party. Like every good DM should.
The first new Wolfenstein was amazing. They got actual German actors to play the nazis and it made a huge difference.
I think Hades is the best overall, which has been mentioned here. Everything from Supergiant Games is great. I've seen Disco Elysium mentioned too, which is also great.
But I think one game that is underappreciated and not mentioned here is Horizon: Zero Dawn. Ashley Burch won several awards for her performance as Aloy. I think part of the reason it gets forgotten is that the facial animations in cutscenes are bad, at least in the main game, which led to people just not liking the cutscenes very much. The DLC's animations are pretty good though.
Recency bias because I'm currently playing it, but Cherami Leigh, Keanu Reeves, and Idris Elba — and a ton of others — in Cyberpunk 2077. If you like sci-fi and fantasy, you're covered. Asuna from Sword Art Online. Neo from The Matrix. And Roland from The Dark Tower. The fact that the latter two actors have their characters modeled after them make it more than just voice acting, though. Johnny Silverhand moves like Keanu Reeves in addition to looking like him. And Solomon Reed moves like Idris Elba. That hulking walk he did in Luther? It's all over the Reed character. As for Cherami Leigh, well, you can make V look like whatever you want. You can even make her male, in whole or in part (trans/non-binary characters are possible, they even have a male voice actor).
I'm seeing a ton of great answers in the comments though. Shout-out to the person who said Portal. Ellen McLain has a role in Cyberpunk as well. Early on, in your garage, your car is struck by a robotaxi. The robotaxi's AI owner invites you to come to their facility for a tour as well as repayment as a way of apology, and he also has a mission for you. This AI has "children" that have been acting crazy (and, one of them hit your car) and he wants you to bring them back in. One of them is voiced by Ellen McLain. In her GLaDOS voice and with lines from Portal. It's amazing. They had to have gotten permission from Valve for that little stunt. If you like Portal, it's probably gonna be one of your favorite parts of Cyberpunk.
I love Keanu but his voice acting in CP2077 felt forced and unnatural
Like when he was trying to act younger? There are basically two Johnny Silverhand characters in Cyberpunk. There's the one in the past, and Reeves tries to invoke some of his Bill & Ted voice, but that's mostly behind him. I think he still has it, but he has to strain and it does feel a little forced. The present Silverhand is more between John Wick and Neo.
I'm sure he has a natural voice that isn't any of these things, but it seems like he gets cast as the surfer, the hacker, or the revenge-fueled soldier type. I should probably look into his drama films, like that one he did with Sandra Bullock where he just looks like a normal guy.
Yeah, I think those parts stand out more than the later, adult Silverhand parts. I feel like Keanu is the type of actor you need to see. Voice acting restricts him and makes him sound worse. I feel like he needs to use his entire body to act, especially in scenes where he has to play a character unlike himself.
Yeah when I got to that issue and heard McLain's GLaDOS voice again I was so happily surprised! Totally caught me off guard in a good way. Made it much harder to assimilate them back into Delmer.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, for the original PlayStation. All these years later it’s still an amazing standout.
It really was one of the first games to go all out with good voice acting.
Go and play other "big budget" games of the PS1 era like the Resident Evil series or even Metal Gear Solid to see the difference.
Soul Reaver really stood head and shoulders above everything at the time.
The whole series was fantastic, really. Absolute masterpieces of writing and voice acting.
The only two I can think of that haven't been mentioned yet, but I feel must:
Disco Elysium
Skywind
The latter is unreleased, but pretty much all the voice acting is done and the work I've heard is impeccable.
Bastion, Hades. Basically all supergiantgames.
I wanted to love bastion so much, but I’ve found I hate twin-stick— or rather, keyboard to move mouse to target in a third person action game controls too much and it just gets in the way. For third person, I just want keyboard only, and target where I’m facing.
Disco Elysium
There’s voice acting in that game? I tried playing it for a bit and all I remember is endless walls of text
Half Life : Alyx. Everyone is great but I especially enjoyed Rhys Darby as the guy in your headset. Tony Todd as the Vortigaunts was also really good.
I can't speak for Alyx as I never got a chance to play more than 10 minutes and I know the voice actress changed for Alyx. But Episode 2, wow. It's a treat to play the game with commentary. The end of Ep2 has Merle Dandridge (Alyx) getting emotional discussing the final scene.
I don't remember the actors names but here are characters and the games whose voice acting left an impression on me:
- Alistair and Morrigan from Dragon Age Origins
- Both leads from Firewatch
- Lee from Telltale's Walking Dead Season 1
- Most of the main characters from Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2
- The voices from Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice
- Astarion from Baldurs Gate 3 was head and shoulders above the rest, although the narrator was also very good
- Troy Baker knocked it out of the park as Indians Jones in the great circle
- All of the Uncharted games have fantastic voice acting. Nolan North was born to play Nathan Drake
- Similarly, the voice acting in The Last of Us is fantastic
- In the mass effect OT, special callout to Jennifer Hlae and Mark Meer (the latter especially grew into the role in the second and third game) and also to the actors who voices Garrus and Tali.
Vampire the masquerade: Bloodlines has amazing voice acting, it's god-tier. Check out the character Fat-Larry😉
I've always loved the narrator of Darkest Dungeon, I just wish i didn't such at the game so bad.
Homeworld - Few lines. All brilliant. " Detecting no communication from anywhere in the system, not even beacons." - "We are being overwhelmed!"
Ixion - So many lines that would make no sense if they weren't being delivered with conviction and sincerity.
The semi-emotionless, or at least restrained emotional delivery of the lines always hit me really hard. They never screamed, never cried, but the matter of fact way they said Kharak was burning, and how you needed to hunt down the perpetrators… it was chilling. The emotion was somehow bleached out of the voices, yet so, so, so powerfully deep and present nonetheless… I don’t know how they managed it, but it was incredible.
I really appreciate Commander Shepard (whoever the male is) when you select renegade options only. The voice lets out stoic, brazen, unfiltered bullshit that somehow fits in with everything going on. It's like the serious version of Zapp Brannigan. I wouldn't be surprised if Seth Green (Joker) influenced it and how to deliver it.
Also, John Marsden in RDR1. If you're not American and know little about their Wild West era, that voice delivery is such a big layer of immersion, whereas other voice acting can really disconnect you from the experience. It being the voice of you helps with feeling like a part of the world. Like compare that to the cowboy from Octopath 🤢
I also really enjoyed a lot of the voices from KCD2. Rosa and Hans are excellent.
It's gotta be the Obra Dinn for me, the vocals are such a huge part of the story and dine really well.
I gotta say David Hayter was the first video game voice actor I ever heard of and that’s because of a metal gear solid. I still think solid snake is my favourite game voice acting. Especially if you look at the subtle difference in Snake’s voice depending on the game. It was a complete travesty to have snake voiced by anyone else in 5, but in canon it makes sense i guess
Every single line in the Soul Reaver trilogy is a masterpiece.
Here, see for yourself. The intro alone will pull you in and never let go.
It doesn't get better than JC Denton in Deus Ex.
Fight me.
Disco elysium, any supergiant game (hades/bastion) logan cunningham my beloved, legacy of kain, parts of mass effect, bad company 2
The narrator in Indika. Or really anybody in Indika. Especially considering the English actors aren't even the original actors.
CURSE YOU BAYLE! I HEREBY VOW YOU WILL RUE THIS DAY! BEHOLD, A TRUE DRAKE WARRIOR, AND I, IGON! YOUR FEARS MADE FLESH! SOLID OF SCALE YOU MIGHT BE, FOUL DRAGON, BUT I WILL RIDDLE WITH HOLES YOUR ROTTEN HIDE! WITH A HAIL OF HARPOONS, WITH EVERY LAST DROP OF MY BEING!
There is so much testosterone in that moment that just reading this comment put an extra hair on my chest.
Daaamn too late :D
That voice actor HATED Bale!

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