That voice actor came from the moon.
Destiny is not only recasting the Ghost character for its next expansion, The Taken King expansion, but it’s rerecording all of his old lines, Game Informer revealed today.
Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones fame originally did the voice of the Ghost, the most vocal character in the original game. However, fans and critics panned his performance as emotionless and phoned-in. Some defended it as an artistic interpretation (the Ghost is some kind of robot, after all), but developer Bungie is clearly now siding with the detractors. Veteran voice actor Nolan North, best known to gamers as Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, is now taking over the role.
Bungie originally addressed the Dinklage problem by, well, not addressing it. In the first two expansion for the game, The Dark Below and House of Wolves, the Ghost was suddenly silent. Now, North’s version of the character will greet players at the beginning of the game and stay with them for The Taken King and possibly future content (North told Game Informer that he hopes to keep doing the role for years.)
This has to be an embarrassing situation for Peter Dinklage. It’s a pretty public replacement, and Bungie will soon erase all traces of his original performance. It doesn’t help that he’s also currently co-starring in an Adam Sandler movie. Game series’ replace voice actors all the time from one game to the next (Lara Croft has had a handful of different voice actors), but we can’t think of another example where a major character was completely re-rerecorded this far from the original release.
The Taken King comes out on September 15. It adds more story, new content, and more subclasses to the multiplayer shooter.