bloodborne has very quietly put in some of the best voice performances i've ever heard in a game

nothing too emotional, nothing too showy, no mind-blowing monologues or award-winning speeches, yet every single line absolutely bangs. not a weak link amongst any of the characters, from random enemy barks to voice lines from bosses. i was playing through with my dad and brother and we got to gascoigne and it dawned on me; fromsoft is a japanese company, comprised mostly of japanese people, who presumably write their games in japanese before translating, yet they've got a character called "gascoigne" with a perfect irish accent using terms like "all over the shop". i could bump into a bloke like that in the pub down the road. it baffles me how authentic it all feels yet it was written by people who're from the other side of the planet. and how much did they pay the bloke who did the screams for the orphan of kos? what were they feeding him when they recorded this shit? i get that the point of acting is to portray something that isn't real for the sake of telling a story, but he actually sounds murderously angry. like the boss genuinely intimidates me just off the back of how good the voice acting is, and he doesn't even have any lines.

there's even a mob, one of hundreds, who mutters "so cold, dear sister" to himself if you sit behind him idle for a bit. it's absolutely haunting and had me looking over my shoulder, yet he's just one of countless mobs in the game. 99.9% of players will probably never hear that line, yet the guy who recorded it sounds like an insane person. christ i love this game.

edit: cheers for bringing this to my attention lads, looks like we’re hiring Frognation and theatre actors exclusively for EVERY game made from hereon, and we won’t accept ANY substitute.

i would also read a 600-page-thesis on molecular physics if it was narrated by Valtr, Father Gascoigne or Simon The Harrowed. I’d have such a bright future.