Why did they change all the voice actors?

[Aeyis]

Listen to Pipin in Japanese and say that. I DARE you XD.

Or better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oC8px1P7C8

[Noshpan]

The talking in the trailer was too brief for each individual voice. And I wouldn't be surprised if the voices were not coinciding with whomever was on the video.

But sometimes voice actors might not be available to reprise their role, be it financially or they are currently busy on another job.

[Souljacker]

I just went and watched it again and I'm not sure that it's so much a change in all the actors (except Alphinaud - no way that's the same guy) but maybe recording equipment has changed. It just doesn't have the same tone\quality and half of them definitely aren't synced to the trailer. The blaring background music doesn't help, either. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out - but it reminds me of hearing some of Howard Stern's early recordings and his recordings now. The quality of his voice 'changed' but it wasn't really his voice, it was the equipment he's used over the years.

In the end, SE is still getting acquainted with the whole fully-voice-acted game thing. We can't expect BioWare level content from them just yet.

[Welsper59]

If you mean Resident Evil 1 it wasn't even half as bad as this lol. But yeah I bet there's loads of games with awful voice acting but for me this is the one lol.

Xenogears was pretty damn awful. Like, I can't even properly make fun of it awful. That's largely due to not many scenes being available to make fun of though lol. Square (Enix) games are pretty notorious for having English VA that are either outright bad or given bad direction. Games that utilize English as part of the default JP game is a prime example of the direction aspect, since in most cases, they won't realize what's bad. Likewise, most non-Japanese speaking folks will usually not realize what's bad VA in that language. If you've ever seen a Japanese movie that tries to use English speaking actors, you'd have a better understanding of that (e.g. the beginning of a movie called Returner).

Jean Gilpin. she did some Skyrim voices too. Very talented lady.

They changed some voice actors because many of them were terrible. A terrible script can be overlooked with good voice acting, but a terrible script with terrible voice acting just makes for a painful experience, and I don't think the scripts are ever going to get any better.

Yep. Some people also just have the voice for it. So when you combine the voice, proper direction, AND the acting capacity, you have yourself a winner. Would people rather listen to Lance Henriksen, someone with years of proper experience in the field of emotional display (i.e. acting and voice work), or listen to any of the given VA from this game? That's the difference between people who know how to play a character (even without proper direction) versus someone who simply thinks something is "good enough". The JP voicework is done by people who already do this as their career, and in many cases, have a long list of past work. They also get proper direction because the director natively speaks the language.

[Kikoten]

This is loosely related, but wouldn't it be cool if, for one glorifying moment, in a cutscene somewhere in the game, your character spoke ONE line? I think I saw that done in one of the Grand Theft Auto games, where your character is silent all game, and then, out of nowhere, says something.

[Noshpan]

I just went and watched it again and I'm not sure that it's so much a change in all the actors (except Alphinaud - no way that's the same guy) but maybe recording equipment has changed. It just doesn't have the same tone\quality and half of them definitely aren't synced to the trailer. The blaring background music doesn't help, either. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out - but it reminds me of hearing some of Howard Stern's early recordings and his recordings now. The quality of his voice 'changed' but it wasn't really his voice, it was the equipment he's used over the years.

Quite true indeed! Changes in tone (on behalf of the actor) or even changes in equipment (either a setting or different hardware) alone can make someone sound different. I watch quite a few broadcasters on Twitch, one of my personal favorites is Cthulhu_the_3rd. When he got a new headset, he sounded much different.

[Waliel]

It does indeed sound more like changes recording equipment and actors getting really used to their roles and whatnot rather than switching actors altogether. You can clearly hear they're still the old ones, or at least I can. Or maybe I am the crazy one here.

[ziddyt]

Good choice in changing them but honestly, English dubs usually suck majorly and this game is no exception. It's emotionless, flat, the voiced do NOT fit the characters and...shall I go on? I don't think I will bother.

Careful, your weeaboo is showing

[Anty]

they should just use the new voices and dub the old CS (and not like they used to be 10-30%). rather 100% and then keep it up like that....
the fact taht in one short conversation we had VO, then after a click, it was gone... was totally distracting already. An immersion killer....

so unless they don't start to use voiceacting everywhere properly (i know there are always excuses but ehy? 10 times smaller mmos use voiceover on all their missions/quests, and with a quite good quality, so SE should be able to do that with ease).
i won't care much about it since it always seemed rushed and without any passion... sadly...

[Elleia]

Voice in scene with Alphy is actually Pipin, my group is currently speculating. Though it did sound like 2/3 Grand Company leadership changed voice actors.

Hard to keep them on long term - and, to a degree, people complaining about voice acting in NA and their quality could be partly to blame here. Or it could be the VAs were asking for too much for the next go-around. So many unknown factors. Best not to dwell on it.

Unfortunately, the voice in the Japanese version of the trailer sounds like Alphinaud's voice, not Pippin's. I'm pretty disappointed as I like Sam Riegel as Alphinaud. According to his twitter, Sam has no idea why he was replaced, so it's probably not due to time constraints so much as it's cheaper to get a new actor instead.

Merlwyb does sound different as well, and I feel like Kan-E may have a new voice actor too. I can't tell on Raubahn, though.