Evil Sounds Deep / Video Games

Evil Sounds Deep in Video Games.

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• Ace Attorney:
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney brings us Manfred von Karma's OBJECTION!s.
  • Used again in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth by Big Bad Quercus Alba.
• Agent Hugo: RoboRumble: Geekdorph has a very deep, robotic voice, fitting an antagonistic robot supremacist.
• The cyclops Gargarensis in Age of Mythology has a guttural voice.
• ANNO: Mutationem: At first, C speaks normally, until much later when he starts undergoing a Villainous Breakdown his voice starts shifting to sound completely demonic as a result of his own malice cumulating to form his dragon incarnation within his entire body.
• Noel's voice in BlazBlue is normally quite high and girly. But when she turns into the omnicidally nihilistic Mu-12, her tone plummets several octaves, in addition to gaining a reverb effect. When she eventually comes to her senses and gains proper control of her Murakumo Unit form, she also loses the deep voice.
• Bram The Toymaker: The titular toymaker, whenever he speaks, always talks in an unnaturally deep voice.
• Ouroboros from Bravely Default is so evil that his deep voice is nearly unintelligible!
• Emperor Doviculus in Brütal Legend. Unsurprising, as he's voiced by Tim Curry.
• Bug Fables: Wasp King, the Big Bad of the game, has one of the deepest Voice Gruntings compared to any other character.
• Call of Duty:
  • Inverted for Richtofen in Call of Duty: Zombies. He has a very high-pitched voice compared to the other male characters, and it kinda defuses the fact that he is Ax-Crazy and The Chessmaster. Emphasis on kinda.
  • The Shadow Company soldiers' voices in Modern Warfare, which are pretty damn scary.
• CABAL in the Command & Conquer: Tiberium series, a malevolent artificial intelligence who speaks in a very low timbre.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • Starting from Cortex Strikes Back, the titular doctor gained a sinister baritone, courtesy of Clancy Brown. Starting from Crash Twinsanity, Lex Lang managed to keep it while making Cortex more Campy.
  • Uka Uka is a raspy variant, starting with Warped, in which Clancy Brown's interpretation even makes Cortex's baritone seem higher in comparison. John DiMaggio's act in Crash N Sane Trilogy takes it even further by applying a filter to it and by adding echoes.
• King Dice in Cuphead, The Dragon to the Devil. In his jazzy Villain Song, he's given a deep, raspy, very clearly Louis Armstrong-esque voice as tells the player of his misdeeds.
• Cyberpunk 2077: Greater-Scope Villain Saburo Arasaka is a man who personally owns the largest MegaCorp in the world and most of the Pacific Rim, and is willing to do horrendous things to ensure his revenge and power. The deep, commanding rumble of Masane Tsukayama sells every syllable of it.
• The Imperium units in Dark Reign are all made to make Darth Vader sound like a wimp.
• Deltarune:
  • King has the deepest Voice Grunting in the game (rivaling Asgore's) and is a literal Card-Carrying Villain.
  • On the Weird Route, Spamton NEO gives us his vilest portrayal, and he has the deeper voice that comes with it.
• Many of the ultras (named enemies with yellow health bars) in Destiny invoke this trope; possibly the most notable example is Crota, whose voice is so deep that it's practically subterranean. Inverted with his father Oryx, who has a deep voice, but is noticeably higher than even his lieutenant in the same scene.
• Diablo in all his incarnations is very fond of this.
• Horst from Discworld Noir. Really bizarrely, when you realize he's one of several characters voiced by Robert "Kryten" Llwellyn.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition has The Elder One/Corypheus, who speaks with a magnificently menacing pitch. This is actually a huge shift from the raspy voice he had in the previous game. In fact, the shift is so great, one could easily be forgiven for thinking it's a completely different actor.
• The voice of the Dungeon Keeper's advisor. Conversely, if the in-game vocal "taunts" are to be any guide, the Keepers themselves almost sound like they're on helium.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • Throughout the series, whenever they are voiced, the Daedric Princes Mehrunes Dagon (Prince of Destruction), Molag Bal (Prince of Domination and Rape), and Hermaeus Mora (Prince of Knowledge, who for bonus points takes on an Eldritch Abomination appearance,) all speak with deep voices. While there is a case to be made that Mehrunes Dagon and Hermaeus Mora aren't truly "evil", they do tend to be very malevolent toward mortals within their Blue-and-Orange Morality spectrums.
  • This is a trait of the Dremora, an intelligent race of lesser Daedra who are most commonly found in the service of Mehrunes Dagon as his Legions of Hell. They speak with deep, distorted voices and are basically a race (the Master Race of the ES universe if they are to be believed) of Evil Is Hammy Blood Knights
  • In Morrowind, Big Bad Physical God Dagoth Ur speaks in a deep, booming baritone.
  • Skyrim:
    • Alduin, the Big Bad, has a deep booming voice like most dragons.
    • Ulfric Stormcloak, depending on what you make of the notoriously grey and hazy Civil War sub-plot. If you sympathize with the Stormcloaks instead of the Imperials, he's a Baritone of Strength instead.
    • In the Dragonborn DLC, the aforementioned Hermaeus Mora adopts a more soothing grandfatherly tone because he wants to make you his new Dragon. It's rather creepy when his voice switches between menacing when impaling his former treacherous champion Miraak and comforting when reassuring you that as long as you remain loyal to him he'll provide rich rewards in the blink of an eye.
    • Exemplified by the character Dagri'Lon in the mod Interesting NPCs.
• Inverted in Fable with Jack of Blades having a creepy, high-pitched voice. Played straight in the expansion The Lost Chapters, in which his voice has been artificially lowered to a more demonic tone.
• Fallout:
  • Frank Horrigan from Fallout 2 has one of the deepest voices in video games, fittingly for a huge super mutant. He's voiced by Michael Dorn, a.k.a. Lt. Worf, who also does the enormous, deep-voiced Maero from Saints Row 2.
  • Legate Lanius in Fallout: New Vegas, and Ulysses in Lonesome Road.
• Far Cry:
  • Bambi "Buck" Hughes, the Australian mercenary from Far Cry 3, has a rather deep, manly voice, but his tone is surprisingly soft and nearly friendly. Compare him to Vaas, who alternates between being a Soft-Spoken Sadist and screaming his head off, and Hoyt, who has a voice like a barking dog, and Buck comes across as the most civil of the three villains. Which makes finding out that he's also a Depraved Homosexual who's keeping Jason's friend Keith as a Sex Slave all the more horrifying.
  • Pagan Min, the murderous dictator of Kyrat in Far Cry 4, has a deep, Alan Rickman-type English accent, provided by Troy Baker, though like Buck, his voice is fairly soft and low, which makes him come across as more friendly(and in contrast to Buck, Pagan's affability is genuine for the most part), which makes sense since he's interacting with Ajay Ghale, the son of his former lover. That said, Pagan's voice is overshadowed by his two enforcers, Paul De Pleur and Yuma Lau, both of whom have deeper, more threatening voices, due to being voiced by Travis Willingham and Gwendoline Yeo, respectively.
  • Anton Castillo, the Big Bad of Far Cry 6, is a Scary Black Man In A White Suit, voiced with the mature baritone of Giancarlo Esposito. He's also the military dictator of Yara, who stands on top of his palace lighting up his cigar when overseeing the riots against him, and he's bringing up his son Diego to be his Overlord Jr..
• Final Fantasy:
  • Inverted in Final Fantasy VI with Kefka and his trademark Evil Laugh. Seymour, on the other hand, plays this straight with his commanding bass voice, which becomes distorted when he transforms into Seymour Natus or Seymour Flux.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy gave voice acting to characters from the first twelve games of the franchise. Apparently, Garland, Cloud of Darkness, Golbez (kinda), Exdeath and Chaos subscribe to this trope.
  • Gaius van Baelsar, the Big Bad of the 2.0 plot of Final Fantasy XIV, is the most infamous commander of the Garlean Empire's army and a man possessed of a booming bass voice.
  • In the DS version of Final Fantasy IV, Kain has a much deeper voice than Cecil, which kind of tips off the player as to what kind of role he'll play later on in the game.
• Stephan Weyte has gone between subverting this and playing it straight; among his other roles in video games are three that he used the same deep, gravelly voice for — one good (Greil in Fire Emblem), one neutral (Captain Claw in, well, Claw), and one evil (Caleb in Blood).
• In Fire Emblem Fates, King Garon, the tyrannical ruler of Nohr, speaks with a booming baritone.
• Five Nights at Freddy's:
  • Freddy's evil laughter when he's prowling around on later nights in the first game is very deep.
  • Foxy sings baritone from behind the curtains in Pirate's Cove.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's 4, Nightmare BB's laughter is noticeably lower in pitch compared to his 2 and 3 counterparts.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location, we get to hear the voice of William Afton, the child murderer who caused the animatronics to be dangerous in the first place. He has a pretty low and menacing voice. As a bonus, he is also an Evil Brit. He returns in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator as Springtrap. Since he is no longer even trying to hide what a monster he is, his voice sounds even deeper, as well as raspy.
• Guilty Gear: Subverted with Potemkin; he has the voice of a TI83 running a voice module, and the brutish and threatening looks to go with it. Look past that though and he's one of the nicest and most polite characters in the series.
• In Iji, Tor's voice sounds like Darth Vader with laryngitis. This was so prevalent, the game's creator had to explain what he was saying in his speedrun videos. Subverted, as he's really a good guy inside.
• In Killer Frequency, the killer's voice is much deeper than that of the callers, the protagonist, or his producer. It's potentially been distorted, as well.
• Most, if not all of the villains in Kingdom Hearts have deep bass voices, especially Xemnas. It helps that most of the Big Bads are different incarnations of the same deep-voiced man. Also inverted with DiZ aka Ansem the Wise, who was voiced by Christopher Lee (later Corey Burton), but is an Anti-Hero.
  • A variation occurs in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep. Vanitas, The Dragon to Master Xehanort (yes, as in the original form of the same guy responsible for all that's gone wrong in the KH universe) is Ven's Enemy Without, an Ax-Crazy personification of all the evil stripped out of Ven's heart. He takes the appearance of series' hero Sora (going into that right now would require a lengthy explanation) and is voiced by Sora's voice actors Miyu Irino and Haley Joel Osment, who employ a deeper, more smug and sinister version of Sora's voice.
  • Zexion and Lexaeus have noticeably deeper voices as Nobodies than their human forms Ienzo and Aeleus.
• League of Legends:
  • Mordekaiser is an Evil Overlord that rules over his own dominion in the afterlife. He manifests in the realm of the living as a hulking suit of armor controlled by necromancy, and has a voice that sounds like what you'd expect from it.
  • Swain is the Grand General of the Noxian Empire, and a Frontline General who commands fear and respect from all. He always speaks in a cold, yet affable, deep tone.
• In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Battle of Aces and The Gears of Destiny, Nanoha's Evil Twin turned Friendly Rival Material-S/Stern the Destructor has a deeper version of her voice.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Reapers as a rule follow this trope, especially with their foghorn-like battle cry. Whenever they deign to personally address Shepard, they do so in a seriously deep voice that leaves no question who's in charge.
  • Sovereign in Mass Effect sets the standard with a deep, ominous timbre with all the flanging one might expect from a synthetic being. At high enough volumes, it almost feels like it's rattling your teeth.
  • Harbringer follows in his footsteps in Mass Effect 2. The main difference between their voices is that Sovereign sounds detached, uncaring, which is pretty much what you'd expect from an ancient sentient starship that considers "organic life nothing but a genetic mutation." Harbinger, on the other hand? There's actual emotion there — hate. There's just more malevolence in that voice, not to mention the way it says "THIS HURTS YOU, SHEPARD."
  • The unnamed Reaper you speak to in Mass Effect 3 also has an incredibly deep voice. You can actually see the air shimmering when it speaks!
  • The Catalyst in the Refusal Ending of Mass Effect 3.
    Catalyst: SO BE IT!
  • The trailer for Mass Effect 3's "Leviathan" DLC shows where the Reapers may have got it from.
    YOU HAVE COME TOO FAR.
  • A conversation between EDI and Engineer Adams reveals that she'd been attempting to disguise the Normandy by experimenting with fragments of code found within the captured Reaper IFF from the previous game. Cue EDI unveiling her best Reaper impersonation;
    EDI: I tried saying "Humans are dust in the stellar wind!", but apparently that was no longer sufficient.
  • For a non-Reaper example, the Shadow Broker has a ridiculously deep voice as well, even without vocal modulation.
• The Matrix: Path of Neo has the Giant Mook during 'The Key', whose voice is much deeper and slower than nearly anybody else's in the whole game.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots goes with the "normal voice combined with another voice" variation for the Beauty and Beast Corps.
• Quan Chi's voice in Mortal Kombat is very deep, deeper than you'd expect, given he looks a little scrawny. You hear it better in the story mode for Armageddon, when he shouts "kill him!" in regard to the hero Taven. His voice isn't nearly as deep in the rebooted timeline.
• Mr. Hopp's Playhouse: "PLAY WITH ME RUBY!"
• Inverted in Myst IV: Revelation, as the good guys Achenar, Atrus, your spirit guide have low tenors or baritones, whereas the bad guys (that is to say, Sirrus) are nearly countertenors but not squeaky or unpleasant to hear. This is, of course, leaving out Yeesha, who is neither bad nor deep-voiced, but also prepubescent and female, excusing her soprano tones.
• Played straight in Neverwinter Nights (and the expansion Hordes of the Underdark) with Paladin/Blackguard Aribeth.
• In Octopath Traveler II, Mugen is given a significantly deeper voice than Hikari, and he's also Hikari's final boss.
• Persona:
  • In Persona 4, most of the Shadows speak with a Voice of the Legion involving the victim's actual voice layered over a deeper echo of it. Naoto's shadow is an exception, though; it's layered with a higher-pitched voice.
    • Teddie's shadow is also an interesting meta case, its voice has a reverb effect to it, but otherwise is much deeper than the normal character's speech, sounding like a completely different person entirely. However, both roles are done by the same voice actor. (In Golden, their voice drops enough octaves to sound downright demonic.)
    • Ameno Sagiri takes this to a truly ridiculous extreme. Its voice is so deep that if not for the aid of subtitles it would be incomprehensible.
  • In Persona 5, this is actually a clue that Igor is the villain. When the real Igor appears at the end of the game, his voice is noticeably higher pitched.
• Planescape: Torment:
  • The Transcendent One has a terrifically deep voice.
  • Inverted with Ignus, the most chaotic evil character you can have in your party. His high, cackling contrasts heavily with The Transcendent One during their dialog.
• Portal:
  • When GLaDOS's Morality Core is destroyed in the first Portal, her voice drops from a tinny, childish drone to a low, seductive tone. Her voice also has a tendency to drop in tone at the end of some lines throughout the game to denote that she doesn't exactly have your best intentions in mind...
  • At the end of Portal 2, Wheatley greets you with a more or less cheery "Well, well, well. Welcome..." followed by considerably darker and deeper "to MY LAIR!"
• Red Faction II plays this straight, then subverts it. In the propaganda speech that plays on the main menu and in pre-recorded propaganda broadcasts throughout the game, Big Bad Chancellor Sopot has a very deep, booming, authoritative voice. However, when you finally confront him in person, it turns out that without studio ADR, added bass, and other post effects, his voice is actually hoarse and raspy (though the fact that he's been running for his life away from you all night may also have contributed to this).
• Albert Wesker, from Resident Evil. Particularly in Resident Evil 5.
• In the Sam & Max: Freelance Police episode What's New, Beelzebub?, all the demons who impersonate other characters have artificially deepened voices when they break character.
• Sonic CD has two soundtracks depending on the region you're living in (Japan and Europe have the melodic Japanese soundtrack, North America has a darker and atmospheric one, and British either have one or the other depending on the port) and both boss themes gave Doctor Eggman an Evil Laugh: the Japanese composers gave him a high-pitched old man voice while the Americans made him a deep, sinister one. This dark depiction of Eggman remained in the boss theme for Sega Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast and reappears as a nostalgic nod in Sonic Mania, despite the Doctor being Denser and Wackier than ever.
• Soul Series:
  • Nightmare plays this trope completely straight in the third and fourth games, with a digitally altered, deepened inhuman voice.
  • In Soulcalibur IV, Tira has Split Personality Disorder. Her Jolly side has a disturbingly pure and innocent voice, but once her Gloomy side comes out, her voice becomes deeper and raspier.
• In The Space Bar, the Big Bad Ni'Dopal has a deep, guttural voice, all the better to creep the main character and the player out while threatening to do horrible things to the main character and his partner that's being held hostage.
• In the non-canon expansion missions for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Lord Starkiller — as a somewhat nimbler replacement for Darth Vader — is given an artificially deepened voice to accompany his new job as the Emperor's official executioner.
• M. Bison from Street Fighter plays this gleefully straight.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Bowser zig-zags this. He was first voiced in Super Mario 64, with a deep Evil Laugh, though he normally emitted roaring sound effects. He was fully voiced in Super Mario Sunshine with dialogue, though this time sounded quite cartoonish and even somewhat tenor... this became the exact opposite in Super Mario Galaxy, where he became the complete rasp he is now.
  • Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga: Despite the character being a female, Cackletta's dialogue is made with the deepest Voice Grunting in the game, one that is used for male characters with a Baritone of Strength.
  • Both the Final Boss and the Superboss in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door get white text in black balloons, which is the visual expression of this trope.
• Umbra in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation has such a deep, evil voice that it's really hard to believe that Umbra's voiced by a woman (they kinda had to cheat by modifying the voice though).
• The Zuul from Sword of the Stars have an impressively guttural voice.
• Tales of the Abyss: Asch has a much deeper voice than Luke, reflecting his Anti-Hero tendencies.
• In Tekken, when Devil Jin talks, his voice is much lower than the normal Jin Kazama's. In Tekken 6, though it's subtler, regular Jin has a slightly lower-sounding voice as well.
• Thief:
  • Played straight and inverted in Thief: The Dark Project. Constantine's already deep voice deepens when he reveals his true identity. Viktoria's voice, on the other hand, rises in pitch slightly.
  • Inverted in Thief II: The Metal Age. Karras has a high, nasal voice.
• The evil Wizard in Tsioque has a deep voice that echoes as well.
• Sweet Tooth from Twisted Metal, especially from Black and beyond.
  "HELLO, BOYS AND GIRLS!"
• Warframe:
  • The Sentient, Hunhow, has an overwhelmingly deep, dark, and booming voice while speaking.
  • Grineer scientist Tyl Regor has a smooth, sinister drawl to his voice which he combines with some top-tier snark and ham. Wicked Cultured undoubtedly fits him.
    Tyl Regor: You had me anxious, Tenno. Nervous, pacing even.... didn't think you'd come. Such a relief... I'll finally get the chance to hurt you.
• Warhammer 40,000 Expanded Universe:
  • Played with in most of the 40k games. The voices of loyalist Space Marines are almost as deep as their Chaos counterparts. Then again, this is Warhammer 40,000, where everyone is evil sooner or later.
  • Dawn of War has the Demon Prince unit in Dark Crusade. YOU DARE TO ORDER ME!? DO NOT THINK I SERVE YOU, FOOL. Inverted, however, with the Chaos cultists.
• The huge undead Doom Knight from Warlords Battlecry III revels in this trope.
• In The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings we have The Draug, a spirit of a General Ripper turned into a giant golem made from broken weapons, armor and siege tower parts.
• In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the King of the Wild Hunt has an ominous rattling growl. It seems to be invoked by the Wild Hunt — their natural voices aren't that deep and fairly normal, but when they put on their helms and facemasks their voices become deep and menacing. It's part of their psychological intimidation tactics such as wearing imposing spiky black armor.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Death Knights have slightly altered voicesets compared to anyone else with the same race but different class. The original Death Knight hero in Warcraft 3 and other evil heroes also have deep voices... except for the female gnome Death Knights, whose altered voicesets just makes them sound like they recorded their lines while sitting in a tin can. And Undead Death Knights whose voice gets actually higher, which makes them sound more insane.
  • In Warcraft III, the Anti-Hero demon hunters have a high voice, but when they activate their Superpowered Evil Side, their voice becomes a deep bass.
  • Let's put the list up: Ogres, demons (except for imps, but including succubi, who are alto), most undead creatures (especially the Lich King), black dragons, Kalecgos-when-mind-controlled-and-forced-to-attack-you, and good grief this list could go on for hours. The game breathes this trope. It's like some kind of drug to the voice actors.
  • Averted, however, in that Thrall and Varian (both voiced by Metzen himself) along with a good number of protagonist characters have pretty deep voices as well. Meanwhile, look at, say, Kael'thas. And no, being a blood elf doesn't justify the lack of trope, as one of the blood elves in MGT has at least a deeper voice by comparison: "I! AM! A GOD!" Kael's is definitely especially high even by standards of his race, but not high enough to register the shrill creepy opposite-end of this trope either.
  • Grom Hellscream changed from having a scratchy, high-pitched voice in Warcraft II, to a deep, gravelly one in Warcraft III.
  • The Russian Dreadlord!
• In Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter, Dalles and Darm both have this type of voice (especially the latter, being voiced by Alan Oppenheimer).

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