Graha Voice Actor Change?

[Garruss]

If it is due to cost and Square doesn't want to pay for a Hollywood actor like Bailey has become, I don't really see an issue, to be honest. Bailey has been a great fit for G'raha, of course, but the new voice the actor did a fine job, and I'd rather the money went into the game itself rather than getting a Hollywood actor to voice a character.

[bunnymoon]

We need transparency from Square Enix.

We can speculate about all the details till the cows come home, but that gets us nowhere.

And the truth of the matter is that this would never happen with the Japanese voice actors. English voice acting is simply not respected in the West, not even when it's involving the literal biggest star on the planet right now.

If Yuma Uchida needed to be recast, permanently or temporarily, we would have known before the patch.

[Kinseykinz]

The more I listen to it, the less I believe it is him personally. It feels like a cold day in hell for me to say that Wuk Lamat did a better job reprising her character than "Jonathan Bailey" in 7.4, but it's true.

I fail to see how JB could push through Wicked and all his other obligations just fine but couldn't voice maybe 2 pages (at most) of dialogue for this, a character he's played for years and says he cares about.

Vocalist here. *if* he blew his voice, it absolutely would be showing up here. And it would take a long time (if ever) to recover and require him to be near silent. Now consider his time in and out of studio to even record the lines is very limited. Meaning, they get him when they get him. If hes got even the flu, so be it. Those are the takes they will have to roll with. Also, if his voice is being damaged from overuse, to be honest, that...is just what it's going to sound like going forward. So, this might be his voice now.



Now on his end, he has said he loves voicing the character. So I just doubt it's a contract or money dispute etc. Time is likely his and SE's main issue. So yeah, I think it's him. Yes some lines sounded raspy/softer and not like him due to it....that also lines up with vocal fatigue or injury.

[UmbralZef]

Glad you liked the performance, genuinely wish I could say the same, but defending SE's lack of respect for the players by making a hypothetical strawman that fans would "dogpile" a new VA is what's really unfair here. Replacing a 6+ year long voice actor of a major character with no announcement while intentionally obscuring the replacement (i.e. omitting G'raha's voice line in the trailer) is entirely unethical and disrespectful not just to players but to the voice actors themselves. Especially because they would never do this to a JP voice actor.

Agreed, and I feel like it's both disrespectful to the players *and* to any new VA for them to stay silent, tbh. If SE really were concerned that a new VA would be 'dogpiled', then all the more reason for them to come out in full support of them, announcing them (or allowing them to announce themselves) and welcoming them to the team. The way they're doing things, staying quiet and even obfuscating the change in the trailer, makes it look like they're embarrassed to admit to it, which is really unfair for anyone taking on the role.

[jackabee]

We need transparency from Square Enix.

We can speculate about all the details till the cows come home, but that gets us nowhere.

And the truth of the matter is that this would never happen with the Japanese voice actors. English voice acting is simply not respected in the West, not even when it's involving the literal biggest star on the planet right now.

If Yuma Uchida needed to be recast, permanently or temporarily, we would have known before the patch.

Agreed and seconding, I would appreciate a concrete source over wild mass speculation. Whatever the situation is, we need truth and transparency.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Vocalist here. *if* he blew his voice, it absolutely would be showing up here. And it would take a long time (if ever) to recover and require him to be near silent. Now consider his time in and out of studio to even record the lines is very limited. Meaning, they get him when they get him. If hes got even the flu, so be it. Those are the takes they will have to roll with. Also, if his voice is being damaged from overuse, to be honest, that...is just what it's going to sound like going forward. So, this might be his voice now.



Now on his end, he has said he loves voicing the character. So I just doubt it's a contract or money dispute etc. Time is likely his and SE's main issue. So yeah, I think it's him. Yes some lines sounded raspy/softer and not like him due to it....that also lines up with vocal fatigue or injury.

Except he's done recent interviews, like Seth Meyers 4 weeks ago at https://youtu.be/35Xioi0vjKI?si=1iWQ3h8k0nVakMPO - he still sounds like himself and you can hear Graha in him.

I think what we got in 7.4 sounds like an entirely different person and I don't believe any of the things being suggested explains what I heard at all.

I also absolutely believe SquareEnix - if they had to recast them - would leave us in the dark until they got their re-sub money since that company has been heavily under the gun from their investors of late, and they barely need more negative press such as losing their most famous voice actor.

[Laerune]

If Square Enix wont answer, cant we just JB?

[mildlymoonstruck]

We should be pushing Square Enix for clarification/transparency on the situation rather than JB because they are the entity responsible for making questionable decisions re: this entire thing, such as omitting G'raha's voice line from the ENG trailer when it's present in all others. I'm not going to pretend I'm not biased; I also look on Bailey's early 2024 BAFTA interview where he speaks so fondly of the character and his commitment to it that I'm willing to give him far more grace on whatever the issue is that has necessitated the recast (since I do believe it's a recast, whether permanent or temporary) than I am the company who chooses acting shady over transparency from the jump. And make no mistake, it IS a shady move because it speaks to their own awareness that they knew the fans would clock that G'raha sounded different and made a choice to hide it until they could release the patch. I also agree with what others have said that it's not only disrespectful to the players, but also to Jonathan Bailey, who has spent years including the absolute peak of his career still giving his all with G'raha's vocal performance even when being pulled in multiple directions for high-profile Hollywood and theater commitments, AND the new VA who has stepped into a debut performance for a beloved character, that they outright HID from the trailer. I doubt they'd be treating their JP VAs like that if Uchida was the one who ended up being recast instead, and it is on Square Enix to address this before it's on anybody else.

[paradisea]

If it is due to cost and Square doesn't want to pay for a Hollywood actor like Bailey has become, I don't really see an issue, to be honest. Bailey has been a great fit for G'raha, of course, but the new voice the actor did a fine job, and I'd rather the money went into the game itself rather than getting a Hollywood actor to voice a character.

Hey, so newsflash: voice acting for the story is the game itself, not some mythical separate thing.

To quote Aco505's extremely on point words from earlier in this thread:

Jonathan Bailey has stated that he likes the character and would like to continue being his VA. This was when he was already famous so I'm sure it's not a money issue and Bailey himself seems like an honest down-to-earth person that does things because he enjoys art.

And speaking of art, video games are so, too. I think we, as players, should be way more concerned when money is always used as an excuse in order not to do something that can be mildly inconvenient. Not everything has to be profitable, especially in FFXIV, the main reason why the company keeps afloat. Sometimes things should be done for the sake of art and keeping beloved long time VAs is one of those things.

We ought to stop acting like it's just totally okay for SE to decide "muh budget" is an excuse. This thread and the reactions all over social media have made it clear that plenty of people are not just indignant over the lack of transparency from SE but over the very prospect of Bailey being recast. This matters to people. This is the extremely beloved voice actor of one of the most (frankly, if not arguably the) popular characters in the game. Square Enix needs to be doing everything in their power to keep him.

Bailey has made it plenty clear he loves the role and wants to keep doing it, I'm sure he's not unwilling to negotiate just because he's become very popular. Like peachsyder said earlier too, he already came back as G'raha when he was at his busiest and working on his most high profile projects, surely if his rates increased because of his popularity it was then, so why would he be getting cut now?

Let's stop acting like multimillion dollar conglomerate Square Enix is scrambling for money, and even if they were, acting like it's okay for main character voice acting to be on the chopping block. If SE is trying to test the waters with a stealth recast and just hoping people don't complain, then everyone who cares about this needs to make it very clear that we want Bailey to stay.

[paradisea]

We should be pushing Square Enix for clarification/transparency on the situation rather than JB because they are the entity responsible for making questionable decisions re: this entire thing, such as omitting G'raha's voice line from the ENG trailer when it's present in all others. I'm not going to pretend I'm not biased; I also look on Bailey's early 2024 BAFTA interview where he speaks so fondly of the character and his commitment to it that I'm willing to give him far more grace on whatever the issue is that has necessitated the recast (since I do believe it's a recast, whether permanent or temporary) than I am the company who chooses acting shady over transparency from the jump. And make no mistake, it IS a shady move because it speaks to their own awareness that they knew the fans would clock that G'raha sounded different and made a choice to hide it until they could release the patch. I also agree with what others have said that it's not only disrespectful to the players, but also to Jonathan Bailey, who has spent years including the absolute peak of his career still giving his all with G'raha's vocal performance even when being pulled in multiple directions for high-profile Hollywood and theater commitments, AND the new VA who has stepped into a debut performance for a beloved character, that they outright HID from the trailer. I doubt they'd be treating their JP VAs like that if Uchida was the one who ended up being recast instead, and it is on Square Enix to address this before it's on anybody else.

I do agree that this isn't Bailey's fault in the slightest, but one thing where I would see merit in reaching out to him (if at all possible — he's notoriously extremely offline) is in the possibility that Square Enix recast him without notifying him at all. If anyone has been around enough and familiar with the Tales series, you might remember that Troy Baker voiced the main character in Tales of Vesperia, Yuri, and was replaced when the game's definitive edition was released in English. People were assuming it was because Baker had become too popular for Tales, but he later revealed he was never approached about doing additional lines/scenes at all, and voiced that he was gutted over it, because he loves the character and would have jumped at the chance to play him again.

The possibility of the same happening to Bailey does exist, and upsets me immensely to even think about. If he's not been made aware, he deserves to know.