Why did they change all the voice actors?

[Caidyn]

The loss of Gideon Emery was especially jarring. Easily one of my favorite voice actors in the industry, especially for his role as Balthier in FFXII, Gideon's inclusion in A Realm Reborn was fantastic. Though his role as Urainger was quite minimal compared to the other Scions, he overshadowed many of their performances.

...which leads to why I'm mostly happy the VA's were changed. The new cast does a real fantastic job of playing out the (much improved) story of Heavensward. They are, in my opinion, well matched to Gideon's talents, which makes me even more saddened he wasn't brought back.

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

Even more jarring is they didn't even try to get a VA to mimic Gideon's Urianger.

[Homestuckergrl]

I know I'm late to this party, but I just had to say I really don't understand people saying they can't hear the difference in Alphy from before and Alphy after Heavensward. I LOVED Alphy's voice before Heavensward and I thought it fit him so very well. He sounds far too boyish now, and it's a bit jarring. I didn't know about the voice actor change until after everything was said and done. Then I kind of had to do a mental double take, because the voice was so very different from before. I miss the original cast, and I don't see how people can say the voice acting was terrible. Especially since such great actors as Gideon were playing Urianger. This complete recast of pretty much every major character seems to have no explanation that I can find online, and it's really saddening. I'm strongly considering changing to Japanese voice acting, since they completely destroyed all the voices of the characters I loved.

[Riardon]

This issue with voice actors is one of the things I really hate on this game. The change in voice for some characters is so drastic that it feels like a completely different character. I can't really relate. In every patch when a well knows character opens his mouth to speak in a cutscene I tremble from fear. Can SE try to stop this or reduce it somehow? It's getting ridiculous with some characters.

[Krazymagic]

I could care less if they change actors...I focus on the fact that we actually have voice overs for important quest points. They could easily just nip voice acting entirely. People are terribly nit picky, and rarely grateful.

[Windi]

I think it's just the nature of the business. I might be wrong, but VAs have a contract-based hiring system, and their job pretty much ends when their deal is met. From there, they are either hired again for whatever reason (especially if the company thinks they are excellent), or they are layed off and get replaced for whatever reason.

What most likely happened is that the original cast had a deal with the only the original, vanilla game, and when Heavensword popped up some may have been unavailable/weren't rehired for whatever reason. Unless there is an official statement as to what happened, however, all we can do is just guess what went down.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

I could care less if they change actors...I focus on the fact that we actually have voice overs for important quest points. They could easily just nip voice acting entirely. People are terribly nit picky, and rarely grateful.

How is it nitpicking to want to have voices be consistent? It totally yanks me from the immersion hearing Urianger's voice from 2.0 and then having a completely different voice in 3.0 that doesn't even sound remotely close to the old voice.

[Ametrine]

Snip.

To expand upon this, the majority of English-speaking VAs work within their local unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild. The advantages is that you have a third party representing you that negotiates fair contracts, legally protects you, and will try to give you steady work (as long as you perform well.)

As Windi said, it's reasonable that the initial contracts were for 2.0's duration. I feel this is most likely as voiced characters added later, such as Aymeric, have used the same VA since their premier.

When it came time to start 3.0's recording, a multitude of issues can creep in.

1)Many fans didn't like the original cast.
2)Actors may have other obligations.
3)Actors may have other, more appealing, job offers.
4) Budget.


Thus, some people getting replaced.

[FunkyBunch]

The only voice actor I didn't like was Minfilia. All the others were fine.
Urianger was my favourite

[DreamAngel-Ren]

Could still be the same VAs just trying a different pitch/range. Maybe some without laying as thick an accent as possible this time around. A lot of folks weren't too into it, admittedly I certainly wasn't for a lot of them.

That's not the case. If you pay attention to the ending credits, you will see that the English VA actors have indeed changed. For example, in ARR, Alphinaud was voiced by Sam Riegel; in Heavensward Colin Ryan took his place.

As for the voice acting, I honestly think that the voices in Heavenward is more serious than ARR; I had re-watched some cutscenes from both sides. In ARR, the voice actors didn't put enough feeling to the dialogue, it's just.."say the line and be done with it". While in Heavensward, there's more feeling like the character truly sounds like they're either angry, skeptical, sad, etc. (the cutscene "Consequences" is a good example).

On a side note, I absolutely adore the VA for Ser Aymeric; Blake Ritson is perfect for him! :]