The Most Inescapable Voice In Gaming Wants To Start His Own Studio

Troy Baker has one of the most prolific voices in gaming. Even if you’ve never heard his name before and have no idea what he looks like, you’ve probably heard him in any number of high-profile roles from Slimer in Ghostbusters: The Video Game to Joel in The Last Of Us. Now he’s ready to get out of the recording booth and into the Jira dashboard.

“I’ve had an incredible opportunity working with the best in this industry, it’s insane—Ken Levine, Hideo Kojima, Neil Druckmann, Todd Howard, Vince Zampella—these people are paragons of the industry,” he told Eurogamer this week. “I’ve worked with these people, and I’ve learned so much from them.”

He continued, “And, what I am excited about doing is taking those tenets, taking those principles of wildly successful titles – not just in terms of sales and figures, but the stories that have defined the industry—and being able to innovate and replicate and emulate those processes and practices into the stories that I want to tell.”

Baker mentioned voice actor Abubakar Salim, who played Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins, commenting on how his fellow performer recently pivoted to the development side. He started a studio which went on to release the well-received metroidvania Tales of Kenzera: Zau in 2024. Baker, a well-known figure in the industry, said he’s started having conversations about walking a similar path.

“Somebody asked me in one of those meetings, ‘what’s your timeline?’ and I said ‘not rushed,'” Baker told Eurogamer. “So, I am going to take my time, because 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.”

Baker, who played Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins and an uncanny facsimile of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, has no shortage of ongoing performance work coming his way. He’s already set to appear in Naughty Dog’s next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, as well as Ken Levine’s upcoming immersive sim, Judas.

He was even detective Jack Pepper in this month’s excellent cartoon noir shooter Mouse: P.I. for Hire. IGN‘s review wasn’t too keen on the game, and Baker wasn’t too keen on IGN‘s review. He recently shared a Reel ridiculing it on his Instagram, something I’m sure Howard, Druckmann, and the rest have wanted to do more than once, too.