Troy Baker is one of the most prolific voices in gaming. Fans will know a lot of the iconic roles he has starred in, but many will still be surprised at the breadth of Troy Baker's work, which pops up in even the most unexpected places.
As strong central performances by well known TV and movie actors take more and more of the spotlight in games like the upcoming Far Cry 6, there is a risk that voice actors who specialize in video game performances will be sidelined in favor of more recognizable faces. The importance of specialized talents like Baker, however, cannot be understated. Here are Troy Baker’s most iconic video game voice acting roles.
Joel: The Last of Us
The role of Joel in The Last of Us is quite possibly Baker’s most well-known performance. Not only does Baker almost flawlessly portray a man who has been through hell and out the other side, but he also provided the motion capture for the character, portraying Joel’s pain and spots of hope in his face and body language as much as his voice.
Joel is a uniquely great video game performance only made possible by the combination of a talent like Baker and the new technology available to studios like Naughty Dog to fully take advantage of that talent in their games. Baker’s performance is strong enough that players can find themselves totally empathizing with Joel even as he does some truly terrible things. The role spans the breadth of human emotion from vicious anger to heartfelt tenderness and set a new standard for video game voice acting.
Booker DeWitt: BioShock Infinite
Baker got some of his biggest credits playing troubled men attempting to reconcile their own pasts with the need to protect someone in the present. BioShock Infinite’s Booker DeWitt showed Baker’s ability to bring a realistic and powerful performance to a character even when their situation is so outlandish that few actors could make it feel relatable.
Booker is launched into the floating city of Columbia and Baker gives a truly stratospheric performance as the former Pinkerton agent navigating a multiverse of possibilities and his own haunting past. Few talents could make a character in such a high-concept world feel so down to earth.
Pagan Min: Far Cry 4
As a character, Pagan Min had huge shoes to fill. Far Cry 3 had been launched to success on the back its villain, Vaas, and Ubisoft was worried that the next antagonist would not be able to live up to him. The studio’s fears were shown to be misplaced, however, when Troy Baker took on the role of Pagan Min.
Baker landed the role after being told to improvise when, during his audition, an assistant walked into the audition room. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, who is this? Who is this walking into the room right now? No, no, no, no, don’t leave. Sit down,” Baker recalls saying. “Now here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to murder her right in front of you.” He landed the role, and brought a new intense charisma to the villain that managed to stay distinct from Far Cry 3 while upping the ante and portraying a different face of evil.
Samuel Drake: Uncharted 4
Baker’s casting as Samuel Drake in Uncharted 4 a bit of an inside joke on the one hand. Nathan Drake is played by Nolan North, possible the only male video game voice actor as well known as Troy Baker. Baker entered the Uncharted series as Nathan’s scheming long-lost brother. Another motion captured performance, the role showed Baker’s ability to play off the chemistry between him and some of the other biggest names in the business.
Batman AND The Joker
There are few actors who could claim to have played both Batman and the Joker, but Troy Baker is one of them. He played Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Telltale Series, delivering a thoughtful and serious performance that contrasted his role as the Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins, where he filled the huge role left behind by Mark Hamill after Arkham City.
There are few better demonstrations of Baker’s range and flexibility, and while fans might be able to recognize his voice between the Last of Us and BioShock Infinite, his outings as Batman and the Joker show just how much of a vocal chameleon he really is. With strong performances being brought front and center in video games and their marketing more than ever, fans will be hoping to hear much more of Troy Baker in the years to come.