It feels likeClair Obscur: Expedition 33has come out of absolutely nowhere and cemented its place as one of 2025’s Game of the Year contenders. While there was a lot of buzz around it before launch, its status as a JRPG alongside its fantastical setting likely put a lot of people off from even considering it. Now that it is out, however, and likely thanks to launching day one on Xbox Game Pass, everyone can’t stop talking about it, and that makes me very happy.
Of course, for those of us completely dedicated to the genre, or those who just love its incredible visuals,Clair Obscur: Expedition 33has been at the top of ourmost-anticipated RPGs of 2025list for quite some time. However, as great as it is thatClair Obscur: Expedition 33has been so well received by critics and fans,I worry that developers will look to one of its coolest features and attempt to copy it in the future. If that ends up happening, the industry could change forever.
Clair Obscur’s Voice Cast Is Impressive
It Features The Likes Of Charlie Cox & Andy Serkis
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’scastis unbelievably impressive and varied. Even beyond its famous stars - which includeDaredevil’sCharlie Cox in the lead role and Andy Serkis as a major character - there are a lot of incredible actors.Final Fantasy 16’sBen Starr plays a mysterious character the promotional material did its best to avoid spoiling, andBaldur’s Gate 3’sJennifer English plays Maelle.All of these great and exceptionally talented actors flesh out an extremely well-written cast of charactersthat carry the game’s narrative.
Of course,it is the game’s more well-known big-screen cast members that drew all of the attention when it was first announced. They absolutely bring their all to the experience, never falling short of their trained voice actor counterparts, and the game is all the better for it. However, one can only imagine that future developers will see theenormous success ofClair Obscurand wonder if its hugely successful stars were, at the very least, partially responsible. I sincerely hope that isn’t the case.
Video Games Don’t Need Famous Celebrities
They Don’t Have The Same Skills As Professional Voice Actors
Video games absolutely do not need celebrities in their voice cast - at least ones that are more traditionally found on the silver screen.Voice actors are professionally trained to excel in those roles, their talents allowing them to bring a nuance and cadence that the majority of film and TV actors simply do not have. This absolutely also applies to animated films, which have long since suffered from famous names being added to the cast list to sell tickets, but drastically bringing down the quality of performances as a result.
While one ofClair Obscur’sbest featuresis undoubtedly its cast, both Serkis and Cox included, it isn’t what makes it such a remarkable triumph. That’s not to say that the game would be better without its two most famous cast members, but thatwith less talented or committed actors, it could have suffered. This has been seen countless times in both video games and animated media, and it is always a great shame, especially as these roles could be going to lesser-known, yet nevertheless extraordinarily talented VAs.
Adding a celebrity to a video game doesn’t make it a better product, no matter how much early 2000s games attempted to convince us otherwise.
Adding a celebrity to a video game doesn’t make it a better product, no matter how much early 2000s games attempted to convince us otherwise. If anything, it pulls players out of the experience, as all they can envision when looking at this character is the famous face behind the voice. If an actor is incapable of transforming their voice for the role, then they simply aren’t suited for it, much like Chris Pratt in theMarioandGarfieldmovies.
Celebrities Voicing Video Game Characters Isn’t New
They’ve Appeared In Everything From Fallout To Call Of Duty
Of course, as alluded to earlier,famous actors in video games is nothing new. Bethesda went through a period of forcing big-name actors into minor roles in each of its games, such as Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart briefly popping up inThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, or Liam Neeson appearing as your father inFallout 3. TheCall of Dutygames often rely on a famous actor to carry their campaigns, such as Gary Oldman as Reznov and Kit Harrington asInfinite Warfare’svillain, Salen Kotch.
Some of these actors, namely Oldman, did give great performances, but many of them felt like a name you put on the box, no matter how few lines they actually say. There are some exceptions to this, such asCrime Boss: Rockay City, which is a loving homage to 80s action movies, and, as a result, stars a lot of actors from that era, like Chuck Norris and Michael Madsen. However, these are few and far between, and,for the most part, video games should avoid putting a famous name into their cast just to sell a few more copies.
I do think that there are some instances in which video games can benefit from famous actors, such as if it’ll help boost the sales of a great game that would otherwise fall under the radar. However, they are largely unnecessary and should be avoided. That’s why I hope that developers don’t look toClair Obscur: Expedition 33and think that its utilization of Charlie Cox and Andy Serkis somehow caused its enormous success, because that would both undermine its incredible strengths and be a huge mistake for the industry.
