Troy Baker: Video Game VO Rockstar Is Also An Actual Rockstar

Video games are made or broken depending on the actor who gives life to the characters. As any VO artist will tell you: voice acting is acting. It takes a significant amount of skill, training, and emotional connection to make us believe that the character is really in love/danger/their own clone who just realized that they’re a clone who is also a brainwashed sleeper agent. And there’s one man who brings the gravitas, aplomb, and range to the mic so often, he’s known for being one of the most nominated voice over artists of all time. His name is Troy Baker and oh, yeah, he’s also a freaking rockstar.

Troy Baker is not only cool enough to have literal April Fool’s day as his birthday, he’s also lowkey got one of the best bands you should be listening to but aren’t. He was in the alt rock group Tripp Fontaine and their sound is a classic encapsulation of the early aughts. The Texas native also released a solo album in 2014, Sitting in the Fire. If you’ve ever wondered what Joel from The Last of Us would sound like if he dropped an album, wonder no more. 

Few voice over artists working today are better known than Baker. His catalog of work is absolutely iconic, as are the characters he gives life to. He’s in God of War, he portrays the tragic main character Talion in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War, he’s in KOTOR, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, heck, he’s Agent Jones in Fortnite. He’s got an incredible range of characters and an acting ability to match. Who else could play both Batman and The Joker? (And various bat-side kicks too!)

Unlike many of his fellow video game VO actors, Baker is a gamer himself. He’s also still a musician, but does it for love and with lots of integrity. In an interview with Wired he says, “I love the fact that I get to do it recreationally; I don’t have to do it vocationally. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I can sit at my piano or pick up one of my guitars and play and there’s not a dollar figure attached to that.” Stay pure king.