Alec Newman is known for his prolific voice acting work across a large variety of games, from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to Alan Wake 2, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Metahpor: ReFantazio. In an interview with Fall Damage, however, he has said that his time playing Crimson Desert protagonist Kliff was unlike any of his other experiences in the industry.
Talking about Crimson Desert itself, he said that “the game is beautiful. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever been involved in. When I started doing voices for video games, it wasn’t like a dirty secret or anything, but it somehow wasn’t treated by my peers as proper acting. And now, all of those peers are ringing me up and asking me how they get into it.”
Discussing the character of Kliff further, he notes that he is an interesting character despite not really saying much throughout the game.
“It’s interesting with Kliff, because he doesn’t say much, but he has an enormous affinity to the other Greymanes and the sort of brotherhood and the family of all that. I was keen not confuse that with a lack of emotional facility, but that’s really hard in a game. It’s not a play, it’s not a film. But the further people have gone in, you know, like 60, 80, 100 hours, the more of a companion Kliff has felt like.”
“We recorded over a period of years as development moved into various phases. So, that’s something that’s new for me as well. I’ve never been attached to any character for that long, actually.”
He even expressed interest in returning to voice the character in the future. “If they asked me, I’d happily record Kliff forever,” he said. “There’s a kind of irony in a character that’s a little bit reserved, recording for that amount of time. The game was being built as we worked, it felt like.”
Newman even made a more touching point about the character design of Kliff, noting that “the render of Kliff’s face and the way he walked” made him believe that the character would be Scottish if he were in the real world. He also said that Kliff looked like his wife’s late stepfather, so “Kliff’s voice is basically his voice.”
Developer Pearl Abyss has made no secret of the fact that Crimson Desert has done incredibly well for the studio. It had been confirmed back in April that 5 million copies of the game had been sold. According to a report, this also led to studio CEO Heo Jin-young thanking the employees who worked on the game and rewarding them with a bonus of 5 million Won.
“I express my deep respect and gratitude for the hard work of each and every one of you who created a product that the world is enthusiastic about, and I am paying a celebratory bonus for achieving 5 million sales to all employees who have silently fulfilled their roles in their respective positions,” he said (via machine translation).
“Our journey does not end here. The potential we confirmed today will be the most powerful driving force to overcome any challenge we face in the future.”
Crimson Desert is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out its latest update.
