Elden Ring Director's Unique Request to DLC Star
- Richard Lintern voices Igon in Elden Ring.
- Recording took about five to six hours.
- Lintern likened the session to a boss fight.
- Director Hidetaka Miyazaki oversaw the recording.
- Lintern's performance was highly intense and praised.
Streamers Visuals
Gaming Reviews, News, Tips, and More
Home
Latest
News
Tips & Guides
Entertainment
Reviews
Games
Editions
Español
Deutsch
Français
Discover
Home
Latest
News
Tips & Guides
Entertainment
Reviews
Games
Editions
Español
Deutsch
Français
More
Log In
Sign Up
Send us a Tip
Shop
Subscribe
Extra
About Streamers Visuals
Store
Advertising
Privacy
Jobs
Terms of Use
Explore our other sites
jalopnik
kotaku
quartz
theroot
theinventory
2024 GO Media
We may earn a commission from links on this page
News
ELDEN RING DIRECTOR ASKED EVERYONE'S FAVORITE DLC ACTOR: CAN YOU EXPLODE?
RICHARD LINTERN, WHO VOICES ELDEN RING'S GREATEST HATER IGON, TALKS ABOUT HIS RECORDING SESSION AS IF IT WAS HIS VERY OWN BOSS FIGHT
Elden Ring
By Moises Taveras
Published Thursday 9:15 AM
We may earn a commission from links on this page
A screenshot showing the Tarnished brandishing a sword. In the background, an explosion is going off with the dragon Bayle at its center.
By now, most players who have dived into Shadow of the Erdtree have probably met Igon, Elden Ring's most tortured but ardent hater.
Since the release of the expansion some weeks ago, Igon has quickly become a fan-favorite character, which has a lot to do with the impassioned delivery of his lines by his voice actor, Richard Lintern.
Unsurprisingly, the experience of recording the lines was as epic for Lintern as most of our encounters against his nemesis Bayle.
Suggested Reading
- We Compared HBO's House of the Dragon To Game Of Thrones To Determine The Worst Ways To Die
- Suspect Behind Trump Assassination Attempt Had A Discord Account But Rarely Used It, Company Says
- Game Pass Woes, Elden Ring Takes, And More Of This Week's Spiciest Opinions
- The Most Sought After Elden Ring Sword Has A Storied History
In an interview with IGN, Lintern, who'd never done voice work before Elden Ring, discusses how the character of Igon largely came to be in the middle of his recording session.
Being an NPC in a Hidetaka Miyazaki game, Igon doesn't have a lot of lines, which Lintern was well aware of going in.
Initially, Lintern assumed he could wrap up his line reads in about 40 minutes. The entire thing ended up stretching to about five to six hours instead.
Lintern thoroughly enjoyed the experience, though, saying, "It felt creative and it felt engaged. And I didn't quite know what I was doing, but I knew that I'd had fun doing it."
Funnily enough, Lintern frames the VO session quite a bit like a boss fight you'd encounter in a FromSoft game.
According to him, he walked into the studio to find more than a dozen people kind of gathered around Elden Ring's director Hidetaka Miyazaki, who Lintern likens to a god of the gaming world.
"I didn't know the game and I didn't know the status of the game, but when I walked into the room, his status was very clear, very clear immediately. Everyone was very friendly, but at the same time, I could see that this was a bigger deal than I'd imagined it was going to be."
He describes Miyazaki as the mysterious figure in the center of the room, very much in control of the operation.
After reading a line, it'd go through several channels back to Miyazaki, who would then deliver notes.
"We were doing lines hundreds of times, literally hundreds, because if I was there for five hours, the actual total amount of lines that I spoke I could've done in seven minutes," Lintern shared.
"I can see him walking back through those theoretical fog gates time and time again."
Throughout, Lintern says that the most consistent note he got was simply to amp things up. "Do you have more? Can you explode?"
And goddamn did that man explode.
Lintern, who in his own words had to go from naught to 5000 for his portrayal of Igon, claims he was "giving it as much as I possibly can vocally, emotionally, neck stretching, vocal cords ripping, everything" before taking a water break and running it back.
Lintern's director must've told him to take five, but I think he heard "change lives" instead and delivered the performance of a lifetime.
Lintern claims that he was spent in more ways than one by the end of the session, and if that doesn't sound like the feeling of triumphing over a FromSoft boss, I don't know what does.
I've been visibly shaken by the end of the most arduous encounters, including one that took me the entirety of a Saturday afternoon and evening during my first run of Bloodborne.
I've held my breath only to let out the deepest of exhales upon doing that last tick of damage. I haven't cried, but I have screeched at the top of my lungs upon having tasted the ichor of victory.
Elsewhere, Lintern talks about how his time with Elden Ring has opened him up to further possibilities in voice acting, which is great considering the fanbase his first stab at it has garnered.
Despite how little he knew about the game and the air of mystery that hung around Miyazaki the whole time, Lintern still managed to pull it out.
Now, Igon is already among one of the most beloved characters in one of the most esteemed catalog of games. How's that for a first day at a new job?
