There are many things that go into making a video game. It’s not just graphics and gameplay, it’s also music (try playing a video game without music), and voice acting if the game has talking characters. Voice acting started small in video games, but now, it’s an important role in many AAA titles. The voices behind the main and supporting characters can help make or break a game. For Overwatch, you could argue that it was vital that the voice acting is on point. Thankfully, it was from the getgo.
After all, the game technically doesn’t have a main story mode. All the story is told through character interactions or animated shorts that Blizzard has posted online. So thus, the characters needed to show their own personalities and stories through their voice acting. And fans loved it. As Rolling Stone notes in interviews with the Overwatch cast, they’re surprised by how well people know them or get excited when they note they were in the game.
For example, Anjali Bhimani is the voice behind Symmetra in the game, a very popular character. One day, she was at a bar with her boyfriend when he decided to talk to some people. He heard one of them say they had played Overwatch and so he went:
“He said, ‘Oh, I think my girl is in that game,’ and they freaked out. They were super excited about it,”
Bhimani noted that she never got this excitement from fans in her live-action acting character, so that was pretty huge for her.
For actor Johnny Cruz, who plays Lucio, he notes that for fans, knowing who voices the character they love is a big thing, and that’s why they go nuts when they meet them in person:
“These people play your character for hundreds of hours, so when they meet you they feel akin to you,” explains Cruz
But it may be Reinhardt actor Darin De Paul who said it best with:
“There are moments where I’m like, ‘I think we’re The Beatles, right now.'”
