I have been seeing a lot of AAA games featuring famous actors in their games, and I think this ruins the immersion of the game. Games such as Cyberpunk feature Keanu Reaves, Death Stranding with Norman Reedus and now Far Cry 6 with Giancarlo Esposity (Gus from Breaking Bad).
I know full well each time I see one of these characters in a game I am going to think “Hey, that’s Gus from Breaking Bad”, instead of being immersed in his actual character. These actors are too famous, and ruin the immersion of video games by taking you out of the fantasy because they look exactly like themselves in the real world.
We are going down a path where we will be seeing a lot more actors taking roles in video games. The last thing I want is a game full of Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise and Leonardo Dicaprio leading the roles of video games.
One argument I see often is that actors play different characters in movies, so why not games? Games are much different than movies. These famous actors can portray a role in various movies, and that’s okay because you are part of the audience, and a story is being told to you. You aren’t necessarily immersed the same as playing a game. In video games, you are INVOLVED in the story, and should be fully immersed in all aspects. Having Tom Hanks enter a cut scene would be completely distracting and ruins the immersion in that moment.
Another argument is that it is cheaper to model animations from a real person. But is it really cheaper to pay an A list actor to feature in your game? I doubt there is any real savings there. Using actors is obviously a marketing ploy to attract players to a game, but I really do not think we need famous actors breaking immersion of the game for the sake of marketing.
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