430 Roles Later, Troy Baker Wants to Direct the Game

Over 430 voice acting credits. Joel in The Last of Us. Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite. Sam Drake in Uncharted. Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid. Higgs in Death Stranding. Indiana Jones in The Great Circle. At some point, the resume stops being impressive and starts being absurd. Troy Baker has been the voice of gaming's biggest characters for over a decade, and now, in an interview with Eurogamer, he's revealed he wants to step to the other side of the process entirely and build his own game studio.

But here's the contrast that makes this interesting: Baker isn't announcing a studio. He's not showing off a logo, pitching a Kickstarter, or teasing concept art. He's announcing the intention to maybe, eventually, if things go right, start one. When asked about his timeline, his answer was a single word: "not rushed." In an industry where actors-turned-developers have a mixed track record at best, that restraint might be the smartest thing he's said.

"I've had an incredible opportunity working with the best in this industry, it's insane," Baker told Eurogamer, rattling off a list of collaborators that reads like a game design hall of fame: Ken Levine, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann, Todd Howard, Vince Zampella. He says he wants to take what he's learned from those directors and apply their principles to stories of his own. "I want to make sure that, when I finally do tell a story, it's one of just as high a caliber of those that I am trying to emulate."

From Booth to Studio

Baker cited Abubakar Salim as a direct inspiration. Salim voiced Bayek in Assassin's Creed Origins before founding Surgent Studios, which released Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a game that won a BAFTA. "I love Abu, I played the hell out of his games," Baker said. "He is someone who has a deep passion for games, and has found a way to turn that into a great business endeavour for him."

I think Baker's instinct to slow-play this is the right call. Voice acting and game direction are different disciplines, and the graveyard of celebrity passion projects in gaming is long. Knowing how a great game feels from inside the recording booth is not the same as knowing how to ship one. But Baker has something most actors don't: he's spent decades embedded in studios run by people who actually know how to make games. If anyone from the performance side of the industry has absorbed enough to make the jump, he's the most plausible candidate.

He's also not exactly winding down his acting career while he figures this out. Baker most recently played Jack Pepper in Mouse: P.I. For Hire, and he's currently working on Naughty Dog's Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet as well as Ken Levine's long-awaited Judas. The man is still very much booked.

As reported by GamesRadar, Baker also told Kinda Funny Games that he wants to "build a team" with people he's already worked with and trusts, framing it less as a vanity project and more as a collaborative effort. "Here's my idea. How can you make it better?" is how he described the dynamic he's after. Whether Baker can actually pull this off is an open question that won't have an answer for years, but the fact that he's not pretending he can do it alone or do it fast puts him ahead of where most first-time studio founders start.