Peter Dinklage is undoubtedly a great actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent in 2003 he has been making a name in the industry. But his role as Tyrion Lannister in the hit HBO series Game of Thrones was the game changer. Since the show’s debut in 2011, Dinklage has been consistently nominated in the Primetime Emmy’s and won an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor back in 2011. But there seems to be a dark mark in his otherwise illustrious career that Dinklage can’t seem to shake off. His infamous, widely criticised voice over of Ghost in Destiny haunts him.
But this “ghost” may finally stop haunting him as he is being replaced by none other than gaming voice veteran Nolan North.
North, famous for his work as Nathan Drake from the Uncharted, Desmond Miles from the Assassin’s Creed video game series, and Penguin in the Batman: Arkham video game franchise, has not only recorded new dialogue for Destiny’s expansion, but also re-recorded all of Dinklage’s work.
The Lead concept artist of Destiny, Jesse van Dijk, commented on the change as a need to keep consistency in the game. He said, “The consistency of the entire universe is very important to us, so we decided to give the full treatment to all of our previous content too. (This) is why Nolan North is also your Ghost from the very moment you start (the game).”
This is also echoed by the Creative Director Luke Smith, “We wanted Nolan North’s version of the Ghost to wake you up at the start of the journey at level one and follow you all the way to level forty.”
North is excited about the project but somehow also, casually threw Dinklage under a bus by sharing to the world his take on the character. He said, “You want to give the Ghost as much personality as the world will allow it, without making it unbelievable.”
Though of course the lackluster performance of Ghost was not entirely blamed on Dinklage, there is much to be said as well about the reworked script and storyline. Hopefully, this drastic change would mean drastic improvement in content and performance that fans have been crying out for.
This leads us to the ask – is it best to leave the video game voice acting to the veterans? Is there more merit in hiring big name television/film actors for video games other than their “star power” pull?
