Fallout's Voice Overs

[@alafujah]

I can't believe you nearly had Jerry Seinfeld as the BOS guard

[@swagmundfreud666]

I was thinking it was William Shatner

[@shizzledink]

"What's the deal with super mutants? Amirite?!"

[@Zurkon128]

I literally thought the exact same thing.

[@jillsandwitch67]

I hate NDAs so much, what I would give to find out who it is.

[@abrahamdrinkin2534]

It’s still crazy to think that freaking Winnie the Poo was in your studio doing easily one of the top 10, maybe top 5 greatest video game villains of all time.

[@TrueNeutralEvGenius]

RIP David Warner, outstanding actor and voice actor, one of the greatest in history. All time favourite. It is time for more experiments...

[@interfusor]

I loved Warner in Baldur's Gate 2. Also RIP Tony Jay, died some time ago -- that voice is amazing. I love "Lou Tennant" the intelligent Super Mutant.

[@fickle_sticks3002]

Ah, the child of Bhaal has awoken…

[@TrueNeutralEvGenius]

@@fickle_sticks3002 The pain will be passing, you should survive the process...

[@resiseven7407]

he made a great Doctor Who as well, preforming alongside his partner Lisa Bowerman over at Big Finish, who make audio dramas for nerds. I also remember him for his brief but great performance as Thomas Eckhardt in Twin Peaks. RIP indeed.

[@Vault5Dweller]

These videos are such a highlight. It's like going behind the scenes of "Star Wars" or some iconic album like "Pet Sounds" -- just deep-dive discussions of artistry and challenge and triumphs. Really wonderful stuff.

[@BlackMasterRoshi]

yea waow

[@maxdickings6874]

You’re telling me this channel is just a pivotal developer from fallout just talking about stuff and the making of?? Hot damn! Subbed, thank you for your work on my childhood

[@shableep]

Omg THAT’S why the voice acting was SO GOOD?? You just knew all these wonderful actors?? It really made SUCH a difference to hear _real_ first class voice acting in a game. It truly set it apart from a lot of other videos games at the time. Even to this day. I was always excited to talk to a character and feel such a strong connection with the character because of the voice acting. It was unlike anything else at the time. It just added the extra layer of authenticity to the universe. To this day I have thought to myself, “How was the voice acting SO GOOD in Fallout 1 and 2?”. Now I know. Super thankful for your stories. Always look forward to them.

[@NubileReptile]

Poor Tony Jay and David Warner. Born with such perfect voices for playing badass, deep-voiced villains, so those are the roles they kept doing over and over. And since the video game role I immediately associate with David Warner is Jon Irenicus, it didn't stop at Fallout.

[@want2killu]

poor those guys got a lot of work, lol

[@NubileReptile]

@@want2killu Well, yeah, maybe put 'poor' in sarcasm quotes. The curse of having as many roles as you want, but they're almost all villains.

[@zerpblerd5966]

underseen movie with Tony Jay called The Spanish Prisoner - read nothing about it, mystery drama, with Steve Martin playing a serious role

[@booradley6832]

Tony Jay did get to play some good characters too, namely the sage and mentor types.

[@Kaboomboo]

Hey we all know Mr. Warner's most iconic role will always be the Lobe on Freakazoid.

[@Mirokuofnite]

I can't believe David Duchovny was almost the BoS guard. Oh well he did a good character in that Area 51 game.

[@drithius4801]

The quality (and name recognition) of the voice actor roster has always astounded me. For what started as a one-man passion project, it was amazing!

[@EvanChantland]

I was sharing the office with Fred Hatch and Nick Kesting when the VO recording was going on. Fred told us about the day Tony Shalhoub was recording. It was something like he'd been sick, got pulled over by the police while driving over, and didn't want to do an accent similar to his character from the TV show Wings. But then he was shown the character and did the accent. Somewhat different from his Wings character, but close enough.

[@wezacker6482]

To the industries detriment, great writing & acting are two things that almost feel like they have been neglected by developers even as games get MUCH bigger, more complicated & more expensive to make, and a a big reason why people go back to older games instead. Your obvious appreciation for what these things bring to the table makes me even more confident in purchasing projects you are involved in going forward.

[@VitriolicVermillion]

I actually just wrote a comment with a little about what really good, plausible, human voice acted lines need. I wonder how much of that is actually routinely done. Problem is that publishers put games to tight timelines. They want AAA quality, new tech, a lot of graphical wow, but as publishers, they want releases more than they want passion project art that will stand the test of time. Games haven't been seen as art for as long as movies have. The audience demands for quality art (writing, thought, humanity) aren't even consistent. A lot just want cawdoody.

[@VitriolicVermillion]

@@lrinfi I should clarify that, while it's not what I want, cawdoody isn't even bad, just that the formula holds games to be produced according to that one specific formula, or at least aspects of it, such as"each game must iterated on the graphics tech," "if any guns, must have every gun that exists," "pvp balance," "recharging health," "not political but absolutely is political," etc

[@Galanthos]

I think scale has an awful lot to do with it. Look at the amount of voiced dialog in Fallout vs the amount of unvoiced text. The relatively small amount of voice work means that every voiced line can be directed like a movie scene. Now consider most modern AAA games, where every single line of dialog is voiced. Even the filler and the nonsense and the background chatter. It's going to be much harder to coordinate quality control. I'd also imagine it's going to be much more expensive to get the kind of talent and "Star Power" that they were able to pull for Fallout.

[@zerpblerd5966]

the voice acting is one of the standout parts of Fallout, some of the best in video games ever brings the game to another level of atmosphere, and the game drippps atmosphere with that Mark Morgan soundtrack

[@8Paul7]

Yeah I went to look at Morpheus video when Tim talked about it to remind myself and god damn the atmosphere of Fallout is still just insane, I can't get over how immersive and atmospheric the game still is

[@JiF28]

ai will never replace it and it never should, we need to fight that

[@yousini]

David Warner did Irenicus in BG2, god tier calculated lawful evil voice if there ever was one. Cannot be improved upon.

[@DACFalloutRanger]

I swear I only found out Clancy Brown was the voice of Rhombus about a week ago. Completely blew my mind.

[@Orffen]

You had me in stitches describing eating chocolate chip cookies with David Warner. What I love most about these videos is I think the humanity.

[@psyrolz1626]

I thought I heard Batman TAS' Two Face while talking to Cabbot!! The entire voice over cast of Fallout is one my all time favorites. Hearing Crash Bandicoot's Dr. Neo Cortex coming out of Rhombus made me jump off my seat. Great video(s), Tim. Ive just discovered this channel and Im loving it. Thanks for all the stories!

[@scrizzjunior]

Fallout has such good voice work by so many great actors. Really ahead of its time. Thanks for sharing.

[@tr3vr]

Completely out of left field, but I'd love a little tour of your memorabilia sometime Tim. Thanks for the videos! It's awesome to think how many of my favorite games you've had a hand in, love the Fallout stories.

[@Active_Sun_Particles]

Alright you just blew my mind with Richard Dean Anderson being Killian Darkwater, How didn't I noticed that! I'm a huge SG1 Fan! Love these Videos Tim, thank you for bringing us all this cool information

[@Cleanser23]

Today you suddently became my favorite channel. I am a big fan of fallout and your stories are so interesting. Thanks!

[@crazynoob159]

I’m loving those stories, you’re a great storyteller. Not only are these videos entertaining but they provide so much insight as well. Thanks for all the videos, Tim

[@AdaptiveApeHybrid]

I love hearing about this stuff. Thanks for posting Tim

[@SongsandActs]

So glad you've spoken about this! I tried to look into the voice acting in Fallout years ago but there was so little info out about it which was nuts considering the amazing talent hired. So excited to finally get some info!

[@TheLastLineLive]

It’s crazy how that war never changes opening that you wrote really fast down to the wire ended up being one of the most iconic opening narratives I’ve ever heard in a video game. It still gives me chills hearing Ron Perlman recite that legendary monologue.

[@hypnocoil3968]

Me and my friends literally grew up watching McGyver, some time around our teens, we all got into Fallout. But despite Killian Darkwater looking just like Richard Dean Anderson, it never really clicked (maybe because the TV show was voiced over in our mother tongue and so I didn't even know what he really sounds like). I remember a friend coming to us one day and blowing all of our minds with this little factoid. So cool.

[@fredrik3880]

Great video. David Warner did a great job (he is also Jon Irenicus in bg 2 and professor Jordan in turtles 2 secret of the ooze both of which i love)

[@thecrazymadbull]

I would pay money to the recording session when you ask the Enclave soldier who the president is

[@SwordlessNinja]

"come to the darkside, we have cookies"

[@touchtablet3364]

Hi Tim, it's me, Touch 😄Thanks again for your wisdom and the transmission of your expertise/experience. Hope one day you'll talk about editors, their differents roles, how they works (not specially Interplay or Xbox or an other), and specially about the relations between studios and editors. The evolution of them (this last thirthy) years could be interesting too. In the same kind of theme, hope you'll talk about what is the difference between editors, shareholders, investors, groups, giant groups, in term of implication, impact on a development, finances, etc. It interested me a lot, and I think I'm not the only one to be curious for this subjects. Thanks again, you are a model for the industry.

[@nicholasbatty8923]

a few years ago i wished for nothing more than this channel to exist and its like tim heard my prayers ❤

[@TheBeowulf]

I remember being a little kid and being blown away by Fallout's voice acting (and also that it came on cd lmao)

[@ssuuppeerrbbooyy]

We all know doing a quest for Steve Urkel to join the BoS would be awesome. Or maybe its Bobcat Goldthwait as Zed.

[@blind_mel0n]

my online status has been nicole (followers)'s initial greeting line for the longest. fallout has some of the best voice acting and dialogues of any rpg ive played to this day. thanks tim and the fo team :D

[@DodderingOldMan]

Wow, I honestly had no idea Fallout had such a stellar cast.

[@MrOswald]

Fallout has great voice actors, no doubt. I really liked the voice that Tony Jay gave to Lieutenant (Lou), the first time I heard it I was fascinated. A great reflection Tim, thanks for sharing it with us!

[@returnofthespacecowgurl]

This has been amazing, I love hearing all these behind the scenes stories

[@PostapocMedia]

This is why you would want to work with best people in their field. They are not considered best for nothing. Loved the insight!

[@wattof]

Wow! Thanks for all your video's Tim. I'm really grateful you are willing to lift to curtain about game development and your career. You're a master storyteller.

[@LeateqOfficial]

Love your channel ! really cool to hear so many new info about videos games you've made

[@cheeseproductions748]

Is the original intro script available to read anywhere? Fascinating story, thanks Tim!

[@whade62000]

Fascinating insights, thank you Mr Cain.

[@joshstivers9042]

Great story, really enjoyed that as a fan of David Warner's work. Thanks for sharing Tim!

[@-Fed-]

Tony Jay was very good. Really leant the lieutenant that air of superiority in both physique and intelligence. Also, his work in LoK was amazing.

[@TheEvanBennett]

Once again, I have scoured the internet for all the Fallout behind the scenes stuff for 20 years. Way before Bethesda bought it and waiting for 3. I could listen to you talk about all the Voice Actor stories for hours. I bet there are really interesting tid bits you didnt think of while making this video. Fallout is my favorite franchise and I apologize that me and some others just crave that content when you've been a part of making so many other good games *cough* Arcanum *cough*. I could see that being annoying but thanks for putting out all of this stuff. Listening to your stories makes me feel like I was in the room when it was being made and I never thought I would get this level of detail and minutia. Thank you so much for taking the time to do these videos and put all this history out there for us when nobody else in your position on legendary games, dont seem to want to. Did you get to meet any of the other voice actors, did you request certain people or did Charles just bring you a list of people he could get? I had not seen the previous video yet about you writing the "War, war never changes" Pearlmen script. Congrats, that is now legendary and quoted constantly be people : )

[@aluinie]

Thanks for the video was really great to hear these stories.

[@Ultra-Chris]

6:08 I would have loved to have heard Gilbert Gottfried play Cabbot the BOS Guard

[@davidovics92]

no way it was him.

[@RyuAzuku]

Man I've been loving your videos!! One thing I was hoping you'd cover in the future is the Talking Heads used in the first fallout game!(like were they named after the band or not lol). I'm not sure how much interaction you had with that side of the game but I hope you have some cool stories about them! All the best 👍

[@oneinathousand2156]

The voice acting in FO1 is leagues above most other games from the time, there’s so many great performances but my favorite has gotta be Charlie Adler as Harold, he totally nails both the humor and sorrow that character always carries with him.

[@CemeterySoup]

This is incredibly fascinating, and speaking of the talking heads, what ever happen to the clay head models?

[@raoulwallenberg5735]

Hey Tim, did you see MrBTongue's video "TUN: Choice and Consequence"? It's 10 years old, but really good. It talks about how Reactivity became codified, but in doing so ended up superficially imitating it. He uses Fallout as the pre-codified example

[@LTPottenger]

Haha wow. Bull did a voiceover? Now I have to find it. He was always good in everything he did.

[@kevinfisher5492]

I think my favourite voice actor would have to be the late Tony Jay, aka "The Lieutenant." Or Megabyte from Reboot. Although I think my favourite voice acting role he did would have to be the voice of the Elder God in the "Legacy of Kain" series.

[@jaydamalley3398]

But...there's no Bard for him to argue with in that game.

[@mrpuddingpop1]

Just his “glorious” makes my hair stand on end

[@TheMasterUnity]

It's a shame that getting all of his great performance essentially results in a soft game over. Unless you have high sneak you're essentially screwed after you're captured by him

[@FluffySylveonBoi]

I was surprised you guys had RDA, Keith David, Ron Perlman etc, so many good actors and voice actors on the game that was supposed to be B project. I love it!

[@loganthebigicecream9711]

you made the best games and i thank you for it :)

[@brochampe-se9fq]

David warner as Irenicus in bg2 has got to be one of the most iconic performances in rpg history

[@odinatra]

Thanks for telling about VA work.

[@swordquest2602]

really enjoyed this one

[@PugFury]

Thank you! I had asked about this in a previous video!

[@whiterabbit4945]

im still in Love with Laura from fallout she was sooo goood

[@smokeythetear342]

Tim I’d love to hear your opinion on the later fallout entry’s! awesome video as always.

[@finbom]

Love listning to you. Great teller. Great topics.

[@GothGfGG]

I get the sense that the fallout dev time was grueling but also the time of your life

[@GypsumGeneration]

I love that you know Community, that's my favorite show!

[@andreibodea6064]

Hmmmm, so you said that voice is recorded towards the end of development and yet you oversaw one yesterday? This could mean that we're getting the project you are working on fairly soon.

[@burntbybrighteyes]

Stockholm??? So it’s for paradox interactive, meaning you consult on vampire 😎😎😎

[@Dr_Slash]

Yep, my thought as well! And if they're recording VA, that means the project is nearing completion (potentially just a few months away). I hope they got Leonard Boyarsky to consult on the project as well, and that they're both happy with how the game turned out 🤞

[@plaidchuck]

Never going to happen

[@burntbybrighteyes]

@@plaidchuck what are you talking about? The game is in development. Yes they had lots of problems and had to reboot it but a company is not buying a license to not do anything with it.

[@securityofficerthefonz5835]

I got to meet Jim Cummings recently and was a blast to talk to! Sadly no 8x10s of Set, Gizmo, or The Master, but it was a bucket list item.

[@innoclarke7435]

Man, I'd love to talk to Jim Cummings. Or Stephen Russell. Something about those two just strikes me as "They seem like they'd be so cool to talk to." Lucky you, man.

[@VitriolicVermillion]

I didn't know this was going to be the kind of story it was, but it turned out to be so very relevant to the present moment in culture, art, and technology, and it was great. You're so right about what real actors can do that AI (well, neural network pretrained generative blah blah, not intelligence, certainly not AGI) currently doesn't, and probably never will. There's this whole complicated interaction where, from the start, you have a quest or story writer who hopefully knows how an overall plot or subplot should flow, what's interesting about it, what sorts of conflicts or tensions or difficulties might be involved. Either that writer needs to do lore research or technical research or whatever else makes a part of the story fit plausibility and established canon, OR that writer has to have a back and forth with the designated expert in that subject matter (and even then, all of it is subject to change). Then either the aforementioned writer needs to write the specific dialogue for that quest or substory, or the designated expert on what kinds of information the (average) player needs in order to know what to do must do that, or consult with that expert, or with literally any other person who did NOT write the quest and thus doesn't already have the answers. Then, with the dialogue written, a casting director needs to be able to imagine what a person voicing the role should sound like, based on said director's familiarity with the story and character motivations and knowing what the characters know or don't know or what past experiences condition their responses, etc. Either a lot of work for one writer here, or still more than people might imagine for several writers, consultants, and editors. Then the actor gets hold of it. They are experienced at taking lines, trying to understand the context as fully as possible, time permitting, and bringing the character to life. When they read dialogue, they probably don't say anything even if the lines are weak, because they are probably used to it. In their field, the writers aren't writing books. The writers haven't necessarily been responsible for making sure the lines are something a human might actually say, or whether the lines are consistent in attitude for the character. Actors, especially experienced ones, know they are the last line of defense against robotic speech like what voice synths produce. And that's what happens when real human creatives are taken out of the loop.

[@josiahmccallister3150]

Also Jim Cummings playing the Master, Set, and Gizmo who is Tigger and Pooh in Winnie the Pooh (plus lots of other things)

[@ilcorvo9559]

What a voice Tony Jay had

[@harveyplays5662]

Wow no wonder David Warner was so good at playing the Lobe no Freakazoid! He was still a "villain" but he was a funny villain and could really get into the zanyness of the show. He even did a Hello Dolly-esque number that he sang in one episode.

[@kevinsuggs1]

Thanks for these videos.

[@lew0]

Very cool, thanks Tim.

[@onionnight]

Richard Dean Anderson voices Killian? As a Stargate SG-1 fan that's awesome!! No idea he voiced Killian!

[@PostNukeProductions]

I feel like having Cabbott give you the wrong directions to The Glow kind of adds to the scene, never would have guessed it wasn't intentional if you hadn't said it.

[@cycleboy8028]

So many times that "out takes" become the best lines in a movie/show/video game voice over. AI can't do "human expression".

[@countrybluegrass]

"Stockholm" got the gears in my head really moving...

[@Lbf5677]

I remember there was a picture of a PC based on valves ,either in the manual or in the game. It was hinted that the player was someone operating this PC. And that the vault dweller was controlled with this PC?

[@Jaqinta]

Ron Pearlman is the soo far best narrator , his voice is soo pitched that his storytelling fits perfectly into Fallout game . Other character voices are also good no arguement about that , but the best one is the Ron Pearlman's voice acting lines :)

[@developerdeveloper67]

David Warner was an absolute legend and went on to voice the best villain ever written BG2's Jon Irenicus. He should have probably done the Master!

[@GrievousReborn]

Fallout also had Jeff Bennett the voice actor for Johnny Bravo

[@massivive]

cant believe latka from taxi driver was almost the BoS guard

[@StumpZip]

Have fun working on the new Vampire game!

[@sierra1513]

As a giant stargate fan Killian Blackwater will always be my favorite

[@bobbinsthethird]

I wanted to hear about this

[@sanjai20111]

Hi Tim, thank you for making these videos I’ve been binge watching through them all! Once you’ve done with fallout could you talk about your work with The outer worlds? I’ve just started playing it and loving it!

[@scbtripwire]

Loved this recounting! ❤ Also OMG, imagine mangled watermarks of image sites online ending up in posters belonging to environment artwork of a game because the poster was generated by AI. I'd bet money that'll eventually happen.

[@andrewhegstrom2187]

I think that's a really insightful point about AI and really, to me, highlights a good purpose for it: filler. Need a last minute character dialogue that wasn't going to be voiced? AI. Use it as a stopgap for problems that arise instead of using it to "solve" everything.

[@Wref]

So far with AI voice over, the most I see it being useful long-term is when it's one person making a game or an otherwise small dev team making a game or for memes. I'm seeing it done for memes already in some YT shorts, using voice lines from retro games and they're pretty entertaining.

[@zambler12]

Still laugh hearing your radio read in bloodlines. Cant believe its not margarine.

[@davidovics92]

Tim, if you're reading this I have an off-topic question for you: you mentioned many times that you took notes of everything. So I'm just interested, are/were these handwritten notes, word docs on computer or what exactly? I think it would also be an interesting video idea... like when did you start writing notes/a journal, how did you come up with the idea, how often do you write etcetc...

[@ServantOfBoron]

You forgot the legendary Charlie Adler as a voice of Harold

[@VanDamnator]

This actually makes me wonder what Fallout would've been had there been enough time to implement all features and if the studio took it seriously from the beginning rather than near the end. Would it have improved? Or would it have gotten worse because more time means a higher likelihood that something unnecessary would make it into the game? Or would it have become practically the same?

[@alexfrank5331]

When i watch behind-the-scene stuff for great films, there's almost always someone saying how much an actor added to the character. AI can provide "original" ideas by being its dumb random self, but to be a master-level actor like Robin Williams who often have better ideas than the script? That's quite a bit harder.

[@robertbreedlovecraft]

Y'know I always assumed the big name voice cast was just the publisher spending a little extra money to make the game more marketable. But I guess it's true what they say about Hollywood being mostly "who you know"

[@souluss]

Imo, current AI architectures will not replace all VA in AAA titles for exact reasons you mentioned. AI VAs will make a lot of indie titles without budgets more accessible though.

[@kavinskysmith4094]

You know a few weeks ago I was looking up some batman the animated series things, and Both David Warner and bull, Richard Moll worked on that show as Rau Al Ghul, and two face respectively, did you purely by chance somehow manage to snag the VA director of Batman the animated series for fallout 1? hence how he knew all these guys, as their was like a revolving door of greatness with that series, as hey who doesnt want to play a villain on batman? and god can you imagine if you had the thought to ask hey can you get Kevin Conroy in here to play an evil vigilante terrorizing Shady Sands for not feeding his bats? like if he is still around you gotta interview him as he's gotta have some crazy stories of his own lol and I can guess the guard but I wont, as theirs 4 choices I can think of and 3 have been in fallout at some point or another and that was at the point where they were filming that

[@whiteegretx]

I agree with you on AI. It's a resource but not a full replacement.

[@davidovics92]

I wonder who the original voice actor was for the BoS guard

[@lew0]

Keith David is Sarget Johnson in halo and in The Thing what a career.

[@Dr_Slash]

And Captain Anderson in Mass Effect, and Vhailor in Planescape, and Goliath in Gargoyles, and Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog... Keith David is awesome, he was pretty much in everything and still manages to steal the show in every role he's in.

[@lew0]

@@Dr_Slash yeah I have a friend who doesn't like him. Time and time again we're watching something and he just walks in and I go crazy.

[@zerpblerd5966]

check out the mystery crime comedy Men at Work (Estevez/Sheen duo, with Keith David)

[@509Gman]

Keith David was The Arbiter. David Scully was Sgt Johnson.