Amid announcements for the voice cast of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one voice actor for protagonist Rook says that the role is an “honor and a challenge” that they are “terrified and thrilled” to be taking on. Erika Ishii says they are a long time fan of the Dragon Age series and have been at work on The Veilguard for more than four years now.
“I am both terrified and thrilled to have the Dragon Age community hear me in Thedas,” said Ishii on X. Noting that “As a fan of the series being even a small part of the game is an honor but a challenge, and I did my best to make a game that I would like to play.”
Ishii has previously voiced Valkyrie in Apex Legends, Ana Bray in Destiny 2, and participates in a wide variety of streaming shows like Dimension 20 and Dropout’s Game Changer.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s main character is Rook, and there are four voice actors to choose from there: Erika Ishii and Jeff Berg as your American-accent Rooks, or Bryony Corrigan and Alex Jordan as your British-accent Rooks. (Alex Jordan, of course, being the guy who made sex noises for Baldur’s Gate 3 because a) someone had to and b) even voice actors gotta eat. Sorry, Mr. Jordan, this will probably be cited for the rest of your career.)
Ishii also noted that they’re especially excited to voice for Dragon Age: The Veilguard because of the diverse character options the series is presenting this go-round.
“Additionally, as someone who identifies as gender fluid it means the world to me to have the option to play as a trans or non-binary main character in a Dragon Age game. I can look the way that I want and I can speak with my voice in a world that sees me for who I am,” they said.
Hello! I’m Rook. 💜 https://t.co/yLG7QviZZD pic.twitter.com/DI2hpLw24eJuly 22, 2024
And it was probably a whole lot of voice work to do. BioWare recently revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has some 140,000 lines of dialogue. 60,000 of those lines alone were, by two BioWare devs’ reckoning, just for the four Rooks.
In other recent Dragon Age: The Veilguard news, we learned that it’s Steam Deck Verified—but not what that means for the system requirements—and we learned that it’s free of the hateful clutches of the EA app.