One part of the games industry that perhaps isn’t spoken about as often as it should be is just how many different kinds of people and jobs it takes to make a single video game, especially a triple-A game. Just what — and who — is required to create the titles we love?
A while ago, I got the chance to interview someone who is as fascinated by this question as I am: Samantha Béart, the actor and performer behind characters such as Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3 and Thomasina in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. We spoke specifically about Beart’s video series, “It Takes a Village,” the title of which is both an answer to and an exploration of the question all at once.
Beart spoke about their journey in the games industry, which began in drama school when they played Assassin’s Creed 2 and became enamored with Ezio (as did we all). Their first video game was Age of Wonders 3, where they played Sundren of the Elven Court Campaign..
When I spoke with Béart, they told me that they began work on what would become “It Takes a Village” during the pandemic, with a mini-conference called Game Voices Connect. “Let’s actually find out what each department does. It was based around people who work with actors rather than the industry as a whole. How can we make life easier for each other? That was the premise.”
In the introduction for Game Voices Connect, Béart said, “Having the same conversations at game industry Q&As, it occurred to me that game devs don’t really know what actors do — and I certainly don’t know what they do either.”
“It Takes a Village” follows along that premise, with Béart calling it a “celebration of the people who make games, on themes of collaboration, friendship and community.”
Beart’s background in the village
The interview was in part an attempt on my part to understand Beart’s own history and how they wound up in the video games industry “village” themself. They talked about how performance capture felt as opposed to purely voice-based roles.
“I come from a classically trained theater background. The voice doesn’t have to do so much because you’ve got body language that you control, and you’re giving the animators a skeleton to work off. It means we can lay off the voice a bit, even though it’s a very big, operatic kind of performance. It’s a remix of everything I did at drama school — black box with no props, wrong costume for the character, line by line in 360. It’s a big of everything.”
Beart mentioned filming both the standalone lines for Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3 — some of which were done separately from performance capture — and Thomasina in The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. They noted that, while their is some separation in the physicality, it’s not as much as fans might think. “It’s just acting, isn’t it? It’s acting for video games.”
Bringing the village
Béart interviews a wide swathe of people across the industry, including performers, composers, casting directors and more, with a focus on “those whose work so often goes unseen.” During our interview I noted that it’s rare for anyone speak about how great a game’s project manager is, and Béart responded, “But without them, the game doesn’t get shipped!”
Béart noted that a common theme among their guests was a diversity of life experience. “Most of them have had at least one career before they’ve gone into games, which again makes it not only richer, bringing all those different experiences and disciplines in; but again, reflective that there isn’t a cookie cutter way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s very much choose-your-own-adventure.”
At present, Béart is on Season 2 of the series, for which they have interviewed Surgent Studios CEO Abubakar Salim, Sad Owl lead artist Sophie Knowles and gaming audio producer Jade Leamcharaskul.
Béart mentioned that one of the motivators was to learn more about each role, citing Knowles specifically, “I’ve known her for years, but we’ve never spoken like this before, about our actual jobs and roles. It goes a little to demystifying what we do, but also the day-to-day of what it’s like in these different roles in the games industry.”
They added, “As a lead artist, that scene is quite a glamorous thing, isn’t it. It’s relatively well-presented in the industry because if a book is produced of the game, they’ll definitely show some concept art. But they’re not showing the day-to-day of her organizing people and making sure they do tasks in the order that they’ve been set up. It’s not seen as interesting, but of course it’s just as important.”