- Paul Eiding is most well known for his voice as older leader types, in particular Col. Roy Campbell. It may come as a surprise to learn he was the voice of Mad Scientist Professor Hojo from Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII.
- The first game in the Gabriel Knight-series is one of the earliest examples, with Tim "Wasn't cast as the Joker because his audition was too frightening" Curry as The Hero and Mark "Actually was cast as the Joker" Hamill as the Bumbling Sidekick.
- Nolan North, the voice of Nathan Drake and Desmond Miles, plays The Penguin in Batman: Arkham City.
- He also voices Edward Richtofen in Nazi Zombies.
- He lent a vaguely nasal voice to the hilariously insane Steven Heck in Alpha Protocol.
- His role as Captain Martin Walker in Spec Ops: The Line starts out as a slightly more serious version of his typical role (Drake voice included), and he gradually morphs into a completely insane and delusional war criminal over the course of the game, and by the end of it he's a broken wreck of a man that just crossed the Despair Event Horizon, and who alternates between snarling in anger and whispering almost in tears at a fabrication of his mind that he pinned all the blame of his atrocities on for a long time. The progressive change in Walker's voice is a subtle plot point.
- He's also the voice behind Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time's El Jefe.
- He also stars in Transformers: War for Cybertron and its sequel, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, as Brawl and Bruticus, the resident Decepticon brutes. In Fall of Cybertron, it's further highlighted by his more in-type role as Cliffjumper.
- Not to mention Deadpool in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, one of his highest-pitched and least serious roles he's ever had.
- He reprises his role of Deadpool in his own self-titled video game, albeit with a somewhat deeper tone in general. He also does the voices in Deadpool's head, one speaking in an even higher pitch, and another deeper voice with a faux-British accent.
- David in The Last of Us is probably one of the biggest examples. What makes this so shocking is that when you meet him, he actually seems like a kind gent who has people's best interests in heart... Then comes the fact that he's the leader of a bunch of raiders you killed earlier in the game. Oh, he and his boys happen to be cannibals. And David is also implied to be a pedophile. Hell, people didn't even know that Nolan even voiced him till the credits, practically like Kevin Spacey in Se7en.
- His career being a recurring member of Valve has also seen him as the corrupted Personality Cores which are a hyperactive nutcase, a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, and a self-parody, along with Merasmus and the Mann brothers - three absolute hams.
- The Jedi Consular can be playing to type on Light Side or playing against it on a Dark Side run.
- Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 sees North playing an imposter of Madara Uchiha (in reality, Obito Uchiha). This goes double, as not only does he portray a a villain with a deep bass voice, but it is, to date, the only anime-related role he has under his belt.
- Rob Paulsen as Gray Fox in the remake Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Basically, the fact that Rob Paulsen played a very serious character (a character who is implied to be driven insane from experimentation as well as at times remorseful of his past in war, and in one source was implied to have PTSD) and do so in-character is a very sharp turn against some of his more lighthearted and comical roles.
- This was done with Naked Snake in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Motosada Mori, the series' military advisor who did the motion capture for Snake's fight scenes, was also made to do all the intimate scenes with EVA's motion capture actress. This led to the unintentional but absolutely Adorkable flinch away from her when she tried to kiss him, among other memorable scenes.
- La Corda d'Oro Starlight Orchestra: Ukiha Mikado is a polite, feminine young man with a gentle, breathy voice. His voice actor? Tomoaki Maeno. That someone who's always done roles with strong, deep voices manages this is pretty shocking.
- Adam Baldwin departs from his earlier psychotic roles to voice the polite, respectable, and intelligent (though he insists otherwise) Quarian marine Kal'Reegar in Mass Effect 2.
- Meanwhile, respected actor Martin Sheen normally plays fatherly type figures, mentors or moral leaders. Not so in the Mass Effect series where he voices the head of the pro-human terrorist organization, Cerberus and the universe's resident Magnificent Bastard, The Illusive Man.
- Also, Steve Blum, who's damn near unrecognizable as Grunt or the Shadow Broker.
- Kate Mulgrew as Flemeth.
- From Dragon Age: Origins, the first game, we have Tim Curry as Arl Rendon Howe. While Howe is a villain, Curry is usually known for playing the likable Evil Is Cool and Evil Is Hammy type villains. Arl Howe, on the other hand, is incredibly subtle and downplayed and it ends up with Howe being one of the most despicable villains he's ever played.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition has Jon Curry playing the American male voice of The Inquisitor. In addition to being one of the voices of the protagonist, he uses a baritone which can be quite unrecognizable compared to his usual higher pitch male voice such as Zevran.
- Normally, Maurice LaMarche plays comedic roles. This did not stop him voicing Calendar Man, a murderer who commits his crimes on certain holidays, in Batman: Arkham City.
- Spike Spencer plays Arakune in BlazBlue. He normally plays small and cowardly boys. Instead, here he plays a psychotic Blob Monster with a much deeper voice than what he's used to.
- In Fire Emblem: Awakening, he voices Excellus, a Sissy Smug Snake who Looks Like a Lady.
- League of Legends has Spencer voicing Wukong, a fight-happy Monkey King Lite, and Kled, a completely manic and violently territorial warlord yordle whose voice sounds like an even-more deranged Yosemite Sam and almost never stops screaming.
- BlazBlue is one huge testimony to Tetsuya Kakihara Playing Against Type. The man who was known for his young, sometimes naive, but undeniably heroic roles like Simon or Shing Meteoryte plays the role of Jin Kisaragi, arrogant Jerkass extraordinaire, practically a Knight in Shining Armor Gone Horribly Wrong. If that wasn't enough, Tetsuya Kakihara also voices Jin's future self, Hakumen, who speaks in a deep and slightly mechanical voice, and a booming Large Ham at that!
- The man also goes on to voice Kisei from Onmyōji (2016), an ultra-polite, cultured, go-playing Long-Haired Pretty Boy.
- Atsushi Nakajima in Bungo to Alchemist has a Jekyll & Hyde personality with two sides' voices sounding nothing like each other, one cute and soft and the other gung-ho and tough. The catch? They're both provided by one Kaito Ishikawa, whose performance as the cute and soft one is bound to catch people familiar with his usual deep, rich vocal quality off guard.
- Charlie Adler plays Super-Skrull in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. While he's played Super-Skrull in some of the villain's animated appearances, he's way better known for playing small Funny Animal characters than intergalactic warlords.
- At first, his role as Harold in Fallout seems to fit alongside many of his other comedic characters because he makes frequent Toilet Humor and self-deprecating jokes, but the more you talk with Harold and learn about his horribly tragic backstory, the more it becomes clear that his use of humor is a coping mechanism to an extent, and he can get quite melancholy while talking about his past.
- Christopher Lee voicing DIZ in Kingdom Hearts II qualifies as a Playing Against Type, as the guy usually plays villainous roles, and yet in this game, he's actually a hero. Kind of.
- Master Xehanort, who puts both the Magnificent and the Bastard in Magnificent Bastard, was voiced by Leonard Nimoy, best known as the actor of Spock.
- Vanitas, one of the villains in the prequel game Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, is voiced by Miyu Irino and Haley Joel Osment, both of whom were known for voicing heroic characters, including series protagonist Sora (whom Vanitas even resembles when unmasked). Word of God had stated that Vanitas was created because Irino had always wanted to play an evil character.
- Charles Martinet, who is best known for playing Mario, plays The Mentor Paarthurnax in Skyrim, one of the most complex and compelling characters in the history of The Elder Scrolls, not to mention someone who talks a lot and is a baritone, that alone is a huge contrast to Mario.
- Before Paarthurnax, he played the jaded, vengeance-seeking Lagerfeld in Resonance of Fate.
- And before that, Martinet also played the villainous Gouji Rokkaku in Jet Set Radio Future.
- And before that, he played the antagonistic, creepy, and androgynous Homunculus in Shadow of Destiny.
- And before even that, he played the hammy Casanova Wannabe Vigoro in Skies of Arcadia.
- He was even in a video game based on Spawn, playing the sleazy, demonic Violator.
- Keith Szarabajka plays incredibly deep voiced villains and extremely dark anti-heroes such as Harbinger and Joshua Graham. Then you hear him voicing random Dark Elves in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, such as the one you frame at the start of the Thieves Guild questline as he's getting arrested
. - Jason Marsden who is known for playing wide-eyed, innocent young boys, plays the hard-edged, jaded Cold Sniper Craig Boone who lost the woman he loves to slavers in Fallout: New Vegas. It's an especially jarring case because his previous work in the Fallout franchise was playing Myron in Fallout 2, an Insufferable Teen Genius who was (allegedly) responsible for the creation of Jet and infamously dabbled in slavery and Black Comedy Rape.
- Josh Keaton is well known as the voice of many a teenaged hero, such as Spider-Man. Then along comes No More Heroes, where he lends his voice to the Ax-Crazy superhero-themed assassin Destroyman.
- He also plays a young Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. There he's a gunslinger with a chip on his soldier, and a younger version of one of the main antagonists of the series.
- He also voices Mizuki in the second Naruto: Clash of Ninja game.
- Also from No More Heroes, we have Travis Touchdown, an American Otaku Blood Knight played by Robin Atkin Downes, who pulls an amazing Fake American accent where his most famous roles have him as either a badass Brit or a mad German scientist.
- The Japanese release of The Tale of Food with Kenjiro Tsuda as keigo-speaking Lóngjǐng Shrimp. Whether this is actually done well, considering the characteristic rough and coarse quality of his voice sometimes comes out of a breathtakingly beautiful, elegant and cultured Dainty Combat Long-Haired Pretty Boy character, is up for debate. See for yourself.
- Daiki Yamashita, known for voicing upbeat young boys the likes of Izuku Midoriya, plays very deep-voiced, adult-bodied (in human form) Karuraten from Namu Amida Butsu! -UTENA-. He then goes on to commit this trope up to eleven with his role as Zitui Swallow in the Japanese release of Tale of Food, who's not only deep-voiced and adult-bodied but also polite, perpetually gloomy and in despair and always longing for death.
- Steve Blum (who as mentioned earlier voiced Grunt and the Shadow Broker from Mass Effect 2) is known for voicing true paragons of testosterone and deep voiced characters such as Wolverine, Vilgax, and Roger Smith, but did you know he also voiced the titular Crash Bandicoot (a wacky, Bugs Bunny-esque Funny Animal) in Crash Nitro Kart? Or how about when he voiced the freakishly bizarre and flamboyant Monkey Yellow in Ape Escape 3? That alone is a testament to his sheer vocal range.
- Laura Bailey, best known for voicing badass Action Girl heroes like Lucina, Chun-Li, Black Widow, and Blaze the Cat, also happens to voice Platinum the Trinity, an absolute spoiled brat of a Magical Girl, plus Persephone, a small bubbly fairy who grants upgrades, as well as a handful of Noel Vermillion's lines that Cristina Valenzuela was unable to provide.
- Ali Hillis voices mainly stern, serious no-nonsense characters such as Lightning Farron, Liara T'Soni and Mizuki Mccloud. Then there's Palutena, who is anything but.
- From the same game, we have Hynden Walch, who typically portrays sweet and naive girls like Starfire, Nia, and Yutaka Kobayakawa. Here, she plays Viridi, a snarky, petty, vengeful god of nature.
- Aaron Spann is well known for voicing good boys like Onion Knight. Then there comes Joshua, where he lends his voice to an arrogant genius smiler.
- Danny Jacobs is probably best known for being a Poor Man's Substitute of Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat and King Julien. In Batman: Arkham Asylum and its sequel, Batman: Arkham City, he lends his voice to the creepy, knife-wielding psychopath Victor Zsasz.
- Liam O'Brien is normally known for playing either outright villainous or Anti-Heroic roles. In Fire Emblem: Awakening, he voices Inigo, a purely-heroic, not-angsty-in-the-slightest Chivalrous Pervert who's secretly a bit shy.
- And a far cry from the brooding, contemplative characters he tends to voice, he's Asura in Asura's Wrath. Still brooding and contemplative to an extent...but with a lot more Hot-Blooded screaming.
- He also played troubled Nice Guy and hero Akihiko Sanada in Persona 3.
- One of his most unusual roles is Izana in Fire Emblem Fates, who's a Cloudcuckoolander and speaks at a much higher pitch than Liam's usual characters.
- There is also his role as Master Big Star in Disgaea 3, The Dandy Sophomore Class Leader of Evil Academy whom is beloved by his fellow students.
- When one thinks Christopher Sabat, one thinks Baritone of Strength (Vegeta, Alex Louis Armstrong, Garterbelt, Garland). Borderlands 2 sees Sabat as Innuendobot 5000, a Hyperion robot reprogrammed by Moxxi to only speak in Double Entendres in a strangely high-pitched voice.
- Bryce Papenbrook is best well-known for his Kid Hero, Nice Guy, and Keet roles like Kirito, Zidane, Henry, Masaomi Kida, Rin Okumura, Asbel, Tiz, and Makoto Naegi. In Shin Megami Tensei IV, he voices Issachar, a friend of the main character who has an upbeat attitude until he got rejected by the Samurai's Gauntlet. Then later on, he transforms into a demon and the boss fight against Issachar is memorably one of his creepiest roles. At least in the case of Henry, the creepy parts of him are usually Played for Laughs.
- Darin De Paul usually voices brutish villains, but two characters he plays break this mold: Ardyn Izunia from Final Fantasy XV, a suave Magnificent Bastard; the heroic Gill Grunt from Skylanders (from the second game onward), and Reinhardt from Overwatch, one of the most unambiguously kindhearted characters in the playable roster.
- Previously, Terrence C. Carson was best known as the smooth-talking stockbroker and ladies man Kyle on the sitcom Living Single. Nowadays, you'd probably know him better as the first voice of Kratos, the vicious, murdering Spartan who razed Olympus and has no time for smooth talk. In spite of all this, Kratos is quite the ladies man himself!
- As Snow Villiers and Booker DeWitt, Troy Baker cemented his status as the gruff-but-good-natured Anti-Hero type, and even as Joel from The Last of Us he clearly had something of a moral center. Who, then, would have foreseen him signing on for the World of Warcraft expansion as the voice of Gul'dan, a power-hungry, manipulative, scheming warlock who sells his own people out to The Legions of Hell in return for the powers of darkness for him and his followers.
- Even more out-there is his role in The Medium. Nobody expected Troy to play a positively horrifying Eldritch Abomination who wants to basically wear you as a bodysuit.
- While Kanji Tatsumi from Persona 4 is a typical Troy Baker role, the extremely Camp Gay Shadow Kanji is definitely not, to the point where many were surprised Troy Baker still voiced him.
- Meta: From the man who brought you the adaption of The Pilgrim's Progress brings you... Five Nights at Freddy's!note
- Another meta: Croteam, previously known for the frenetic, unsophisticated First-Person Shooter series Serious Sam, released the philosophical puzzle game The Talos Principle.
- Yet another meta example: Creative Assembly's Total War (a series of historical battle games) choosing to adapt the fantastical and fictional Warhammer of all properties into an entire trilogy no less.
- D.C. Douglas is known for voicing Obviously Evil Large Ham villains. A lot of people can be taken by surprise with his performance as the friendly and heroic Geth, Legion, in Mass Effect, who shed a great deal of light on the previously-mysterious and seemingly evil geth, the quarians, their initial war, and played a major role in one of the biggest Tear Jerkers in Mass Effect 3.
- Matthew Mercer is most well known for voicing characters with a baritone, such as Chrom in Fire Emblem: Awakening or Cassidy/McCree in Overwatch, but his performance as MacCready in Fallout 4 employs a higher-pitched, youthful voice that can easily be mistaken for Yuri Lowenthal. He also completely disappears into the role of the wise-yet-campy Cloud Cuckoo Lander Yusuke in Persona 5.
- Robbie Daymond's forte tends towards youthful boys and young men, like Prompto Argentum, Goro Akechi, and Tuxedo Mask. It came as quite the shock when he revealed himself to be the voice of Kenshiro in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, a character with one hell of a baritone (although his experience with higher pitches lent well to Kenshiro's famous "ATATATATATATA" battle cries).
- Christine Marie Cabanos, a voice actress known for her Nice Girl and/or Token Mini-Moe roles, voices Symonne in Tales of Zestiria, which happens to be a villain.
- In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, she also voices Hapi, an Ironically Named stoic and dour young woman.
- Ross Scott, best known in the Machinima community as the voice of Gordon Freeman in Freeman's Mind is also the voice of a monotone robot in the Half-Life 2 mod Steam, Tracks, Troubles, & Riddles.
- Minecraft: Story Mode:
- No-nonsense and realistic Ivor has the same voice as Pee Wee Herman.
- Patton Oswalt does the vocal effects for The Wither Storm.
- The Terror Mask of Splatterhouse is a Large Ham, Sir Swears-a-Lot Blood Knight that verbally abuses Rick and calls him a pussy often. If you want a funny image in your head, could you imagine a pissed off Darkwing Duck, Doctor Robotnik or Winnie-The-Goddamn-Pooh doing that? That's right, the Terror Mask is voiced by no other than Jim Cummings himself.
- Brianna Knickerbocker is often associated with Nice Girl, Shrinking Violet, and The Quiet One type characters. In Fire Emblem Fates have this along with Pigeonholed Voice Actor. Sakura is the kind of character she would normally voice, but Charlotte is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that likes to flirt with men.
- When she's not playing plucky, nice, or genki girls, Cherami Leigh usually voices refined Lady of War, Team Mom types. Rhea from Fire Emblem: Three Houses fits this pigeonholing most of the time, except on the Crimson Flower route, where she goes terrifyingly, violently insane.
- Noriaki Sugiyama is best known for voicing characters that at least are a little eccentric or irritable, then along comes Abe no Seimei from Onmyoji who possesses neither of these qualities.
- Trevor Devall is known for voicing characters that are either Large Hams, completely insane, or are very relaxed. And then in Final Fantasy XV, he plays Ravus Nox Fleuret, a grim, serious, fallen prince that often speaks in Purple Prose who wants revenge against the protagonist's country by blaming them for not rescuing his kingdom.
- Jamieson Price is known for playing Large Ham baritone characters. In Fire Emblem: Awakening, he plays Virion, a total dandy.
- Another role he did was Seraph Lamington in Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, whom proves a soft-spoken and generally calm kind of character, never once raising his voice even under duress.
- Rie Kugimiya is normally known as the "Queen of the Tsundere archetype" back in the 2000s, so imagine that KeA Bannings is a little girl who has Girlish Pigtails yet is not a Tsundere but rather a sweet adorable girl is a really big surprise.
- Likewise, she has lent her voice to Haruka Sawamura, Rise Kujikawa, and G41.
- She would go on to voice Kagura from Onmyoji who is a quiet, brooding girl.
- Greg Chun normally voices calm, heroic characters like Lukas and Ephraim. In Valkyria Chronicles 4 he plays Raz, a Hot-Blooded Sir Swears-a-Lot.
- Similarly, in AI: The Somnium Files he plays protagonist Date, a loudmouthed Chivalrous Pervert who isn't shy about making innuendos or snarking at whoever he can, be it his AI partner or his adoptive daughter.
- Michael Sinterniklaas, who usually voices straight-laced heroic characters, charismatic villains, and Adorkable comic relief characters, is the hammy Blood Knight Gan Ning in the Dynasty Warriorsnote series. There's also his role as the Eldritch Abomination that is Orphan in Final Fantasy XIII.
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon: The English dub sees Zach Aguilar, most famous for voicing heroic characters like Genos, Koichi, or Male!Byleth, voice Sota Kume, a character without a single redeeming feature and possibly the biggest Hate Sink in the franchise.
- Xanthe Huynh typically plays girls who are either demure (Haru), shy (Marianne), or outgoing (Agnea). In River City Girls and its sequel however she plays Sabuko, a ruthless Yakuza heiress who looks up to her dad quite a bit.
- NEO: The World Ends with You sees her play the Variabeauties' leader Kanon, who's confident, sharp-tongued, flirty, and knows she's good looking.
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