The guy who voiced Adam Jensen — the hero of 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution — says he worked for two years as the voice of Jason Brody, the hero of 2012’s Far Cry 3, and lost that role because the two characters sounded too much the same. Man, I hope no one tells Nolan North about this.
At MCM Comic Con in London this weekend, Elias Toufexis told a panel that Ubisoft, Far Cry 3‘s publisher, was concerned that the game’s audience would identify Brody’s voice too much with Jensen’s in Deus Ex, so he was sacked in favour of Gianpaolo Venuta for the lead role.
“In fact, I shouldn’t say this,” Toufexis said, before saying it, “I played [Brody] for two years, did the voice and when Deus Ex came out, they replaced me because they were nervous that … ‘we don’t want people playing this game and thinking of another game.’”
Toufexis seems to have no hard feelings about it, calling such a dismissal “justifiable” and “understandable.” As a gamer, it strikes me as a little neurotic, though, considering I’ve listened to Nolan North voice everyone from Nathan Drake to Desmond Miles to General Zod and Deadpool and not confused any of his characters for another. You just sort of go, “OK, it’s Nolan North, so this must be a big-budget game,” and move right on with playing it.
If anything, it makes Toufexis’ well-timed repartee with Michael Mando — who voiced the unforgettable psycho villain Vaas in Far Cry 3 — a little more interesting and understandable in this video.
Adam Jensen Voice Actor Was Sacked From Role As Far Cry 3 Lead [Xbox360Achievements.org via GameSpot]
To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.
Comments
30 responses to “Actor Says He Lost A Big Games Role Because His Voice Was Too Familiar”
But he does an excellent job and nobody would’ve cared anyway. People wouldn’t have thought of another game. Wth
Indeed, I rarely manage to put 2 different characters voice actors together and even when I do, I don’t get some kind of versimilitude issue where im LIKE DEUXCRY EX.
I don’t think I would notice and/or care, but at the same time my biggest issue with Ben Affleck as Batman is that I’m worried I’m not going to be able to accept him as Batman because I know him as Ben Affleck. Voice acting is different but the principal can apply.
It actually sort of speaks well of gaming and Ubisoft that this was a concern. It was a little dumb to be worrying about but it’s nice that they took it seriously enough to be thinking about this stuff to begin with.
Wow… They really went the other way with the replacement voice then didn’t they. Despite enjoying Far Cry 3, I could never stand Brody’s voice… I guess maybe that was the point, but yeesh.
Same with movies, when I watched Taken I was wondering why Ra’s al Ghul was running around trying to find a girl and totally ignoring Batman
Ra’s al Ghul gets around, what with fighting Sith Lords and Trade Federation droids, and raising the hero of the Capitol Wastelands in post-apocalyptic D.C., too.
@dc?
Fallout 3
Thanks, but that wasn’t the joke- was calling out a regular commenter 🙂
Oh ok. Pardon me 🙂
I kept waiting for the daughter to get on a plane which crashed on a mysterious island. Still hasn’t happened.
Assuming that the voices actually sounded the same, he would have made a terrible Brody for the same reason he made a great Jensen. One was a weary veteran, the other was a young, brash, bourgeoisie American. They should sound completely different!
If he was doing the same voice as Deus Exs Adam Jensen, then its probably a good idea they went with someone else. The farcry 3 character was supposed to be a kid who got thrown in the deep end, jensens voice comes across as being alot more mature and grizzled.
He didn’t ask for this
… It wouldn’t take two years to record all the lines for that game and they wouldn’t have attached a VA to a game two+ years before launch.
Plus the guys normal talking voice if different enough from jensen’s once he stops doing his batman growl that he could easily have portrayed both. By his logic, Rueben Langdon shouldn’t have been chosen to be Ken Masters because it’s too close to his voice for Dante from Devil May Cry
Image Jason Brody with that batman growl..he would need a beard or something
Suddenly the image of batman crouch running through a jungle, bow drawn, skinning anything he comes across enters my mind and I realise that would basically be a predator game
WUERSTHADAGGER!
They wouldn’t leave voice acting to the last minute, it would get done parallel to the level building and before the testing etc. Far Cry 3 was delayed a few months too, which means it probably spent a lot of time in testing and fixing at the end.
See, or rather, hear it in anime all the time. Never gave a shit there, wouldn’t give a shit in a game.
Actually, that does start to bug me sometimes in anime. To the point that I’ve sometimes actually wanted to get into the industry just to help change it up a little, get some variety in there.
Yeah it bugged me a bit in One Piece once I realised Sanji > Trunks and Osopp > Krillin, but got over it eventually 🙂
EDIT: Oh and Zoro > Vegeta/Picclo/etc.
You and me are much alike in the aspect of joining the industry. Pity I’ll never move to the US to make it a reality.
If only Madman would expand into Funimation’s territory.
Exactly. You have to be in the US for this shit and there’s no way in hell I’m moving to that godamn mad-house while it’s in the process of tearing itself apart.
Only example where I like oh really is freakin, Shinji. That guy gets around haha
So does the guy who does Kyoma(SP) in Steins Gate. Immediately recognised the voice from Spice and Wolf. I like that guy though. His voice matches his roles so damn well.
I guess with both games being first person perspective, they thought they couldn’t rely on the characters looking different to let you mentally separate them.
While Nathan Drake and Desmond Miles sound the same, being in third person perspective games you can easily see that they don’t look the same (clothing and facial features).
Elias Toufexis does have a distinctive voice though – when I was playing Splinter Cell: Blacklist, I pretty much recognised his voice doing Andriy Kobin straight away (I hadn’t played Splinter Cell: Conviction, so had no idea he was in it).
To be honest – I would have preferred his voice over Gianpaolo Venuta’s voice, whom I found to be a bit whiny.
But at least it gave him the chance to work on Contrast
*silver lining*
When I played Deus Ex I actually thought the voice was done by Timothy Olyphant.
Oh come on Ubisoft, “where do I know that voice from?” is just part of the fun of games these days!
Nolan North can do different voices from his norm too though, Dr. Richtofen and the 2 characters he played in TLOU for instance.
Yep. I remember hearing David talk and going “oh damn I KNOW that voice from somewhere, but WHERE! It’s not the same voice, but similar.”. Wasn’t until the credits rolled when I realised it was Drake :p
Didn’t take away from the game though….
I can recognised Nolan North (and a few others) in all the different games that they’ve voiced. They’re good VAs and it’s nothing against their actual delivery of the lines, but it can take away from the experience when you’re playing two completely different games within months of each other where the main VA is the same person.