Blizzard Fans Furious Over Cast Changes In StarCraft 2

11 Mar 2009 at 12:49:26 by Gunnar Petzall

Thousands of Blizzard fans are up in arms over the news that two of their favourite characters from the original game, will be voiced by different actors in Starcraft 2.

Since the first rumours that the original actors might not return (at least not Robert Clotworthy, the voice of Jim Raynor), there has been some unrest in the StarCraft community, and the issue has escalated with the announcement that Blizzard has started auditions for the voices of Jim Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan, according to IncGamers' StarCraft network site.

These auditions came as a bit of a surprise for Glynnis Talken, the voice of Sarah Kerigan, who had already been confirmed to be involved with further voice acting, and can actually be heard in the sneak-peek cinematics recorded for StarCraft 2 pre-alpha. There was further fan reaction, and fansite polls popped up.

As the auditions came and went, it became clear that even though Robert and Glynnis had both expressed an interest in returning for StarCraft 2, neither of them would. While it's likely too late to do anything about it, the fan reactions have now increased tenfold, with internet petitions, vocal reactions and polls on Blizzard's official forums, as well as more fansite reactions - and even videos urging the community to ask Blizzard to bring back the original authors.

Even though many feel strongly about this issue, most of the fans have also clearly stated that it's not a "deal breaker"; they will buy and play StarCraft 2 even without their favourite actors, but although want their favourite characters to sound the same. Fans with less interest in the actual storyline don't care at all: StarCraft is primarily a multiplayer RTS game. In the end we'll just have to wait and see what Blizzard chooses to do.