The voice of Swain from League of Legends has been uncovered, and it is a notable Game of Thrones actor. The Grand General of Noxus was voiced by longtime actor James Faulkner. Faulkner is perhaps best recognized currently as Randyll Tarly from HBO’s Game of Thrones.
League of Legends, the long-running and massively popular MOBA, is made by game company Riot Games. Riot traditionally does not credit voice actors for their work publicly, and instead only acknowledges the talent after the actors themselves reveal their work. The gaming world was clued in to Faulkner’s work by a reddit post by a Spideraxe30 showing a Twitter interaction between Faulkner and another user. Faulkner, apparently unaware of Riot’s practice of crediting voice talent, coyly acknowledged his work on the game and lamented the lack of acknowledgement on Riot’s part.
Rift Herald’s Ryan Gilliam piece on the matter has exposed the rift between Riot’s practices and the awareness of their voice actors. The discovery was originally made on Twitter by a lawyer and fan using the handle @LimitlessChaos.
Faulkner, a veteran actor, has over 120 acting credits over the last 47 years. Appearing in films and television series’ ranging from Downton Abbey and Bridget Jones’s Diary to the 1997 direct-to-video A Kid in Aladdin’s Palace, Faulkner’s career has turned a corner with the credibility garnered for playing Lord Tarly. Randyll Tarly, in Game of Thrones, is the Wildling-hating and House of Lannister-aligned father of Night’s Watch meister Samwell Tarly. In League of Legends Faulkner’s strong and distinguished voice fleshes out the demonically-powered ruler of Noxus, Jericho Swain. In the world of gaming voices, Faulkner has also worked on Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Turing Test, and voiced Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
This incident has provided a good opportunity for Riot Games to adjust their policy regarding voice talent. While it might distract slightly from the game itself, making news of their voice actors only stands to increase the profile and popularity of League of Legends. A hire such as James Faulkner, who already has a significant foothold in fantasy entertainment as Tarly, would make for enticing news out of Riot. As mentioned in Gilliam’s piece, it is also widely rumored that Patrick Warburton provides the voice of Zac.
