Baldur’s Gate 3 is a wildly complex game, but the humble narrator helps guide players through it all. Whether I’m in a dingy goblin village or peering into a pool of mind flayer tadpoles, I know the narrator will dispassionately explain the finer details to me. It helps that the voice actress does such a good job at being cool, clear, and slightly mysterious. The mystique is only slightly broken by an incredible series of TikToks posted over the last couple of months by narrator actress Amelia Tyler.
“Who did this word with four apostrophes in it?” Tyler says in one TikTok, astounded. “That’s some fantasy bullshit.” She also comments on how wild it is to read a script where “dancing eye spiders” are one of the most mundane lines you might encounter. She also makes a series of silly mouth noises after fumbling a couple of particularly ridiculous lines.
Tyler’s jokes make me genuinely appreciate her performance in Baldur’s Gate 3 all the more. For instance, she jokingly calls out her colleagues as “mo-cap bastards,” noting her role as a narrator means that she has to sit in a booth and act alone, rather than perform any motion capture. She also says if you fancy Astarion, you should probably look into therapy. This is true but it is also an absolute attack on me, personally, and I won’t stand for it.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is not only full of fantasy words and lines that must be delivered with gravitas, but also some genuinely silly moments. The game allows you to break into news stations and run your own propaganda, play a companion’s magic flute, and fling gnomes off of windmills into the far distance.
Fans have left adoring comments on the outtake TikToks, and some are even asking for a version of the campaign where we get Amelia Tyler’s bloopers included in the narration. It’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the narrator, who’s entire role is to be unseen and yet all-knowing.