With Dragon Age: Veilguard heading for release later in 2024, BioWare is ramping up the speed at which it shows off the upcoming game. After years of near silence on Veilguard, we got a gameplay trailer with a slew of additional details last month, including our first look at some of the game’s cast. Now we know who will be playing the leads of Veilguard, including a few familiar names that Dragon Age fans are already getting excited about.
One character sparking a lot of interest among fans: Manfred, the skeletal assistant of necromancer Emmrich Volkarin. It might not be the meatiest role (given that he’s nothing but bones), but since BioWare announced that he’s being played by Matthew Mercer (of Critical Role and countless game characters), the bony newcomer to the crew is getting plenty of attention. Emmrich himself will be played by Nick Boraine, who previously voiced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s Colonel Norris.
Given Critical Role’s massive and vocal fan base, it’s no surprise that Mercer’s casting generated a lot of buzz as soon as it was announced — including, of course, plenty of players suddenly declaring that they have the hots for a skeleton. Mercer himself joined in on social media by simply sharing a gif of a dancing skeleton to get into the spooky spirit.
Among newcomers to the cast, the game’s player character, Rook, also has players excited. Since players can choose their Rook’s gender, the character will feature four selectable voices to provide multiple options, with two actors from the U.S. and two from the U.K. Players will be able to select from Erika Ishii (of Apex Legends, Destiny 2, and Dimension 20 fame), Bryony Corrigan (Baldur’s Gate 3), Jeff Berg (Battlefield 1), and Alex Jordan (Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur’s Gate 3).
Ishii is likely the voice players are most familiar with, given their many roles in games from Apex Legends and Destiny 2 to Stray Gods, Starfield, and Deathloop. Ishii has also appeared on Critical Role along with Mercer, and their fans likewise took to social media to share their excitement at having Ishii in the role. Ishii also shared the casting update on social media, speaking in a video considerably more heartfelt than the dancing skeleton method.
“As someone who identifies as gender fluid, it means to the world to me to have the option to play a trans or nonbinary character in a Dragon Age game,” Ishii said.
Along with Ishii, one other Rook actor has gotten plenty of attention, but for a very different reason. Alex Jordan plays Mr. Hands in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, but some players may recognize his voice from a very different source. As Eurogamer first pointed out, Jordan was brought on by Larian Studios to perform various grunts and moans for Baldur’s Gate 3’s more sexual scenes, a role which he may not be super eager to leave at the top of his list of credits. Still, Jordan is taking it in stride, getting in on the joke by updating his banner on X (formerly Twitter) to reference the spicy role.
According to BioWare, Veilguard’s cast will also include several returning actors reprising their roles from previous games in the series. Fans have already begun speculating on who they might be — or, more accurately, desperately hoping that their own personal favorites will be among the returning characters. We do know that Gareth David-Lloyd and Brian Bloom will return as Solas and Varric, respectively.
Dragon Age: Inquisition players were also eager to see Lace Harding, a fan-favorite character who appears early in the game, show up in Veilguard’s gameplay reveal, and it’s now confirmed that she’s played again by Ali Hillis. While Harding isn’t a main character in Inquisition, fans immediately became smitten with the flirty dwarf scout. Players can carry on flirting with Harding throughout the game, but she doesn’t have a full romance arc the way other characters do — an oversight that many are hoping BioWare will fix in Veilguard.
Veilguard is one game that certainly doesn’t need any help attracting players, but the voice cast announcement is still good for BioWare. With a cast so full of returning favorites from past games and new additions with their own legions of fans, Veilguard has given Dragon Age fans one more reason to be excited about the upcoming sequel.
