Much to Todd Howard’s chagrin, testing audiences for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle loved Troy Baker as the leading man: ‘They picked you every time’

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle seems to’ve been whipped into good shape by Bethesda, a much-needed win for the studio—capturing for fans (including our own Ted Litchfield, who gave it an 86 in his review) the pure distilled essence of the action adventure classic, like a modern Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the beloved franchise. Part of that’s due to the dulcet tones of Troy Baker, who played the leading man.

While poor ol’ Baker gets thrown in the Nolan North bag of instantly recognisable voice actors who get cast in everything, I think it’s easy to forget that the guy’s got range. I remember him doing a downright solid impression of Mark Hamil’s Joker for some of the Arkham games, and it’s much the same here, his chords striking an eau de Harrison Ford just fine.

Still, he’s been on the record as saying that Todd Howard didn’t want him cast because he’s in every game—revealing a little more what the slow whittling down of Todd’s presumptions looked like in a recent interview with BBC’s Newsbeat. Baker states that, eventually, the audition process came down to him and another actor, leaving the deciding vote to test audiences.

“Todd Howard said ‘they picked you every time’,” Baker reveals, which gives me a very funny—though probably inaccurate—image of Todd Howard with his head in his hands, staring at a results sheet that’s 100% Troy, a landslide victory for his least likely pick. Baker tells the BBC he was relieved, thinking “that was a compliment … he was like ‘no, it’s a challenge. That’s the standard’.” Our Howard is ever so quick to humble his subjects.

Baker didn’t know peace immediately after getting the part, alas—telling the BBC he thought he’d get fired in the first days of production. It wasn’t until then that Howard had mercy on the poor blighter via email: “He said: ‘You’re doing a hell of a job’, and I was like: ‘You have no idea how much I needed to hear that right now’.”

That’s a little self-deprecating for one of the industry’s most ubiquitous voice talents, but, hey—insecurity can crop up anywhere, and I think if Todd Howard himself looked me in the eyes and brought his powerful judgement to bear, I’d probably wobble a bit myself. Not to mention stepping into the shoes of such a beloved character. Baker says, simply: “If you get to the end of the game and you feel like ‘I was Indiana Jones’, then I’ve done my job.”