Alec Newman: games used to not count as real acting

Alec Newman, who plays the lead in Crimson Desert, says that a few years ago voice work and motion capture in games were treated as secondary among actors. He has been in games for more than ten years, since Fable 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Now, he says, the same colleagues ask how to get into the industry. He ties the shift to how visible story games have become and names Baldur's Gate 3 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, where acting was discussed by players and the press.

Besides Crimson Desert he voiced Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077 and played the lead in Still Wakes the Deep. After his daughter was born he barely plays and has not finished Crimson Desert itself, but he calls the Pearl Abyss project one of the strongest in his career and “unlike anything else.”