If you’ve been anywhere in the Elden Ring corner of the internet lately, you’ve almost certainly been bombarded with the sound clip of a man screaming the words “Curse you, Bayle.”
I’ve seen it so many times that, even though I haven’t fought Bayle the Dread yet, I feel like I’ve experienced the highs and lows of this fight a thousand times. But if you haven’t experienced the fight – or the NPC named Igon who utters the actual words – then all you need to know is that he’s an angry dragon warrior in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, hell-bent on slaying the fearsome dragon Bayle the Dread.
Spoilers for Igon’s Questline below.
In an interview with IGN, Richard Charles Lintern, the actor behind this well-known voice, talked about what it means to him to work as a voice actor for a video game for the first time and his experience working with FromSoftware.
“I’d never done voice work in the gaming world, never been used, never tried to be used, never considered myself as a possible voice artist,” says Lintern. “And once I opened that door, it was a real revelation to me. I was amazed at how global and how huge it is. I had kind of imagined that the world of television and film and theater was the biggest or most important or whatever. And my eyes were opened, not even by working on Elden Ring, but by the response to it and the reach.”
FromSoftware is used to having iconic voice actors lend their art and soul to roles both small and large. One of my favorite characters in Elden Ring so far is the uber-Welsh Albus the Albinauric, who I discovered in Liurnia of the Lakes. Even though I only spoke to him for a few minutes while he gave me instructions on another half of a medallion that would allow me to reach the Haligtree, I felt like voice actor Martyn Ellis was giving the performance of a lifetime before his character died right in front of me. But honestly, Lintern’s dubbing of Igon is of a whole other level of passion.
“The character I played in Elden Ring went from zero to 5,000,” says Lintern. “He was far away. He was either dead, dying or recovering. I’m standing there with my arms outstretched. I don’t think I even knew Bayle was a dragon. I think I thought Bayle was a person. But I give as much as I can, vocally, emotionally, with neck stretching, vocal cords tearing, everything.”
The aftermath of Lintern’s five-hour stint at FromSoftware was apparently pretty intense, as the voice actor reflected on how much the role had demanded of him: “I remember walking away thinking: A. I’m exhausted. This has never happened to me before. I’m absolutely worn out, my voice is ruined and I’m physically exhausted and emotionally exhausted. B. it was quite an experience.”
I am 100% convinced that recording these lines was exhausting, but thankfully it was worth it since Lintern has had such an impressive impact on the community. Aside from the countless edits of Lintern’s monologue circulating on social media, many players are simply expressing their general love for the character Igon.
“Igon is the best NPC in the game,” says one player on Reddit. “He’s mortally wounded and still building weapons to fight Bayle again while crawling to Jagged Peak. Then he cuts off his finger, knowing full well he can’t make it to the peak alive, just so we can summon his soul to kill Bayle AFTER he dies. The guy is a fucking legend.”
I wish there was a way to turn him into a Spirit Ash after defeating Bayle, just so I could have a few more adventures with him, because he really is an unforgettable character. But I understand that with Bayle gone, his journey is truly over and no one deserves a break more than this guy.
Sometimes you defeat the beast and sometimes the beast defeats you.
Lanterns
“I remember feeling pretty stupid at one point,” Lintern continues. “After about an hour or two, there was a line where I said something like, ‘You are defeated. I triumph over you.’ And then the next line on the piece of paper was, ‘So you defeated me.’ And I remember saying something like, ‘I think there’s a mistake in the script here, because one minute he’s winning and the next he’s losing.’ And then there was this awkward pause on the other side of the screen. And at some point someone came up to me and said, ‘It’s a video game, Richard. Sometimes you defeat the beast and sometimes the beast defeats you. We need both options.’ I hadn’t thought of that.”
But despite some confusion, it seems Lintern really enjoyed his time at FromSoftware. “I remember thinking for a few days afterward, ‘That was a pretty intense experience,'” he says. “It was very mysterious. Mr. Miyazaki was a very mysterious figure, but it was fun. It felt creative and engaging. And I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but I knew I had enjoyed it. Let’s put it that way.”
As a fan who has only been listening to his amazing monologue for about a week, I’m happy to hear that despite the rigors, it was a positive experience, as it hopefully means we’ll be able to enjoy his dramatic acting again in a different role in the future.
