1/3 On patch day, I was among the first to log in when servers went live, and the first thing I did was start MSQ. I was joking to a friend about JB being replaced with circumstantial evidence being that the EN trailer for 7.4 omitted his speaking line. I was joking about the doomposters claiming he was recast, literally seconds before I heard his first line. I had a severe double-take, expecting Bailey's voice, and I did not hear it. I leaned in and tried to listen closer, maybe I misheard.

I had watched EN cutscenes on repeat that include G'raha Tia. I had watched Wicked, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Wicked for Good just because I wanted to support Bailey's career. I checked out some of his press tour footage and watched some of his interviews. Hell, I've even listened to one of Bailey's narrated sleep stories. I'm quite confident that I can pick out his voice- his natural speaking voice is how he delivers G'raha in FFXIV.

I did not hear his voice the second time, or the third. To me, it sounded egregiously like someone else. The accent was all wrong. The delivery was not congruent with the delivery that Bailey usually puts out. The audio quality was egregiously lower than the other speaking characters. Whether it was the audio quality responsible or not, Bailey's signature velvety, breathy, bass-y tone was absent. In its place was a performance that made me fully believe Bailey had left FFXIV.

So, as one rabid fan does amidst panic, I logged out of the game, took to Bluesky, and shouted to the void that G'raha Tia was recast. I may have unintentionally kickstarted some amount of the panic in the fanbase, as people who had yet to play the patch had read my post there and started parroting my fears. I was sleep deprived from an all nighter and an 8 hour shift, and went to bed without playing further. For jumping to an early conclusion and inciting fear, I apologize sincerely- it was disrespectful of me on multiple fronts, from the spoiler embargo on social media, to whoever actually voiced G'raha in 7.4. It insinuated that whoever is behind the microphone did horribly, and I don't believe so in the slightest, and it's not fair on them to have the fans tear their audio apart to compare it to prior recordings. I was just entirely surprised and disappointed that we had no idea beforehand that he would sound different.