Ralph Ineson is the Video Game It Guy of 2023. The English actor, who has had a remarkable supporting career in television and film, has managed to land leading roles in two of this year’s biggest games: Diablo IV and Final Fantasy XVI
The games were released within two weeks and Ineson is at the center of both, playing the gritty Lorath in Diablo IV and the equally gritty Cid in Final Fantasy XVI. Attentive listeners immediately noticed the overlap and wondered how he managed to land roles in back-to-back summer gaming blockbusters.
In an interview with The Verge, Ineson told me the story.
Ineson has done a little of everything an actor can do. He studied drama in college, worked as a drama teacher for a number of years, and began acting in earnest in the mid-’90s. He starred in the UK version of The Office, had small roles in The IT Crowd and Coronation Street, and played a Death Eater in the Harry Potter films before his big break.
“I made the effort, and about eight years ago my career got a big boost when Robert Eggers cast me in The Witch,” he said. “It was my first starring role and the first role I’ve had where I could kind of show off a bit.”
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Ralph Ineson in his role as William in 2015’s The Witch. Image: A24
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Ralph Ineson in his role as William in 2015’s The Witch. Image: A24
Ineson credited his role in The Witch and his signature voice as the reasons he was wanted for Diablo and Final Fantasy. Speaking to Ineson, I was shocked to learn that the deep, warm, purring rumble emanating from both Cid and Lorath isn’t an affectation he displays when acting – it’s just that way he speaks.
“I’ve always had a very deep voice. I got it from my grandmother, a really tall woman from Liverpool,” he said. “When I was a kid, people would turn and look at this little kid and say, ‘Why is that voice coming from that little boy?’ So yes, [my voice] was always a bit spooky.”
“I’ve always had a very deep voice. I got it from my grandmother.”
Although Ineson has a history as a voice actor, he doesn’t have very many video game credits. Before playing Cid and Lorath, Ineson voiced the video game version of his character from Deathly Hollows and played an infamous pirate in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag.
With just under 16 days between Diablo and Final Fantasy, I imagined the recording sessions for each game would be just as tight, with Ineson hopping between different voice recording studios, like Robin Williams in the climax of Mrs. Doubtfire. The reality, however, was much more mundane.
“They’ve never come this close,” he said. “For a period of three years, I attended a three- to four-hour session on each game every three months.”
For Ineson, voice acting and traditional acting are two different things that require different parts of his skill set. For a physical performance, Ineson talked about how he could do a take or two over several hours, as filmmakers need to consider the specifics of the production, such as getting the costumes set up correctly and placing the camera and lighting in the right places. But for the voice output there is only the actor and a microphone.
“It gets pretty hypnotic in a way,” he said. “You can easily play with the lines and repeat things without having to do the whole build [that comes] with film and television. It can be quite liberating in a weird way.”
Cidolfus Telamon, dominant of the lightning Eikon Ramuh, in Final Fantasy XVI. Image: Square Enix
As Ineson described, the voice acting is usually done in a vacuum – just an actor speaking in a booth. But for his work on Final Fantasy, Ineson spoke about how there was a different build that affected both his performance as Cid and the relationship between Cid and the main character, Clive – voiced by Ben Starr.
“It’s very unusual to be working with another actor in the session,” he said. “But for the first six months to a year, we did things together.”
Clive and Cid have a special bond in the game that is clearly felt in both Starr and Ineson’s performances. “We got on really well as buddies and just fueled each other as actors. The characters’ true relationship mirrors our own,” he said. “The way they brought the two of us together in the studio was a really good decision; It contributed a lot to the relationship between them [Cid and Clive].”
“The characters’ true relationship mirrors our own.”
If you hear both Lorath and Cid, you probably won’t be able to tell the characters apart. While I can imagine Ineson having a hard time making himself sound different in the different roles, he said there is a more practical reason why Cid and Lorath sound the same.
“I didn’t want to have to come back [each recording session] with a different voice with these characters,” he said. “So I made the decision to just give them both my Yorkshire accent, just to create some sort of definitive continuity.”
This strategy worked in his favor as there are very little narrative differences between the two anyway. In Diablo, Lorath is a gruff member of the Horadrim, a society dedicated to fighting the legions of Hell and also fighting a notorious drinking problem. He guides the player through the story, occasionally picking up his sword to fight demons at his side.
In Final Fantasy XVI, Cid is the rugged leader of a loose association of freedom fighters dedicated to combating the oppression and tyranny faced by magic users. He leads the main character Clive and occasionally plays his lightning powers as the avatar of Eikon Ramuh.
Due to the striking similarities between the two characters, I wondered which of the two Ineson identified with more.
“I think because I’m probably a bit in the middle of the two age-wise,” he said. “In a strange alternate reality, I could see Cid getting knocked down to the point where Lorath is, and I imagined Lorath had some of the energy and panache that Cid had when he was younger.”
Though Ineson’s personality is somewhere between Cid and Lorath, his work on films such as the upcoming prequel to The Omen, a Nosferatu remake, and his research through multiple readings of the Book of Revelation make him lean more towards Lorath and Diablos overall world of demons.
“A lot of the work I’ve done over the past few years always feels like I’m either Satan or I’m fighting him.”
“It feels like I’m always either Satan or fighting him.” Image: Blizzard
With the release of Diablo IV and Final Fantasy XVI, Ineson gets his first real taste of video game fandom.
“I get great comments, especially on my performance, which I obviously care about, so it was great.”
However, Ineson is not a player. During our conversation, he said he played a bit when he was younger and again when his son was little, but that he largely stayed away from the world of video games.
But even then, despite not knowing the stellar reputation of the two franchises he worked on, he knew his accomplishments would be unlike anything he’d ever done before.
“Cid’s anarchic political nature immediately appealed to me as a much younger man, and Lorath also made him feel great to write because I’ve lived in that world as an actor,” he said.
“So both jobs felt special even before I entered the cabin.”