If you can't get enough Troy Baker in your videogames, here's the good news: he's going to start making them
Troy Baker is arguably the most high-profile voice actor in videogames, and undoubtedly one of the most prolific. You can't get away from the dude: he's been Indiana Jones, Joel in The Last of Us, Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid, Bioshock's Booker DeWitt, Uncharted's Sam Drake, and the list goes on and on (and on).
But if you just can't get enough Troy Baker in your videogames, happy days: Baker has announced his intention, via a new interview with Eurogamer, to start making the things himself. Baker says he's inspired by Abubakar Salim, who played Assassin's Creed's Bayek among other game and TV roles, before founding Surgent Studios. Its debut title, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, won a BAFTA and was nominated for a clutch of other awards.
"I love Abu, I played the hell out of his games," says Baker. "He is someone who has a deep passion for games, and has found a way to turn that into a great business endeavour for him."
Now, time for a bit of name-dropping. "I've had an incredible opportunity working with the best in this industry, it's insane—Ken Levine, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann, Todd Howard, Vince Zampella—these people are paragons of the industry. I've worked with these people, and I've learned so much from them.
"And, what I am excited about doing is taking those tenets, taking those principles of wildly successful titles—not just in terms of sales and figures, but the stories that have defined the industry—and being able to innovate and replicate and emulate those processes and practices into the stories that I want to tell."
Hey, if Baker can pull off a Bioshock or a Metal Gear as his debut title then more power to him. But right now it sounds like he's very much in the pre-planning stages.
"Somebody asked me in one of those meetings: 'what's your timeline?', and I said 'not rushed,'" says Baker. "So I am going to take my time, because I want to make sure that, when I finally do tell a story, it's one of just as high a calibre of those that I am trying to emulate."
Such is Baker's omnipresence at times it's easy to forget that the guy is audibly very good at his job: I thought his turn as Ocelot was excellent, and even when he's deliberately chewing the scenery as Higgs in Death Stranding there's a knowing charm to it all. I wonder how much inspiration Baker will take from Kojima: perhaps we'll end up playing a Troy Baker game, directed by Troy Baker, written by Troy Baker, with cutscenes by Troy Baker.
Was Baker's Indiana Jones a little bit like a Harrison Ford impersonator? Yes, but I suspect that was the brief. Amusingly enough in that case, Todd Howard thought Baker was in so many games he didn't want him as Indy:
"My favorite part of that story is how Todd Howard, when they originally brought my name to him, rolled his eyes like, 'No, I'm not putting Troy Baker in my game.' And I never thought that I would be [in it either]," said Baker.
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