Ellie and a fellow survivor in The Last of Us Part II.
Stephen Chang was the voice actor for Jessie in The Last of Us Part II
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The Last of Us Part II voice actor breaks new ground with Twitch’s Artificial

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 7 min

Millions of people who played The Last of Us Part II saw a strong Asian-American male character in Jesse, voiced by actor Stephen Chang.

Jesse is a badass scout and zombie slayer who accompanies protagonist Ellie on her quest for revenge, and we get to know him as a strong, loyal, and kind character — before developer Naughty Dog’s story unceremoniously kills him off. His contribution made an impression on me, as I have rarely seen Asian Americans playing such major roles in video games. The Last of Us Part II is full of diverse characters at a time when so many other games are noticeably not.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.