The Other Darrin in Video Games
Games with their own pages:
Individual examples:
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# to C
- 007: From Russia with Love recast almost the entire film, due largely to the fact that the game was made forty-odd years later and, for example, Bernard Lee (M) died in 1981. However, the game traded itself in part on the fact that Sean Connery was convinced to voice James Bond, reprising the role for the first time since Never Say Never Again.
- Ace Attorney:
- In the first four games in the series, all characters were "voiced" (in "Objection!" shouts and the like) by various staff members at Capcom in all languages. For Phoenix's appearance in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies onward, where characters have actual lines, all characters are played by professional voice actors instead.
- Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney furthermore has Phoenix and Maya played by their actors from Ace Attorney (2012) in the Japanese audio instead of their usual voice actors and a completely different, UK-based cast in English.
- Advanced Variable Geo: Chiho is voiced by Hekiru Shiina in the first game and Yōko Asada in the second. The Variable Geo OVA, clips of which appear in Advanced V.G. II, features a completely different voice cast.
- Altaïr from Assassin's Creed has a completely different voice and ACCENT between his appearances in the first game and Revelations, with a short repeated dialogue re-dubbed with the new actor. The change in accent could however be explained that in the first game it was being viewed with Abstergo's Animus, while in Revelations it's being viewed with the Assassins' Animus viewing Ezio viewing one of the Memory Seals, so it's possible the different Animi have different translation software.
- Back to the Future: The Game
- Marty McFly is not voiced by Michael J. Fox,, but by a voice-acting newcomer named AJ Lo Cascio. The story goes that when AJ first spoke his lines as Marty during a recording session, it was similar enough to Fox that it completely surprised Christopher Lloyd. Later on however, Michael J. Fox voiced multiple characters in the fifth episode of the game ("OUTATIME") as cameo roles.
- Biff Tannen and George McFly have been given new voices in the form of Kid Beyond and Michael X. Sommers (respectively, who also voice Kid Tannen and Arthur McFly), replacing Tom Wilson and Crispin Glover.
- Backyard Sports has had four voice casts: 1997-2001, 2002-2003, 2003-2005, and 2006-present. All except 2002-2003 were made up of mostly the same people, but playing different characters each time.
- Bayonetta 3: The title role and Rosa were recast with Jennifer Hale following a pay dispute with the original VA, Helena Taylor.
- BlazBlue:
- Continuum Shift II, including the Arcade versions and Extended releases, replaced a few of the English VAs from the first game. Some were quasi-identical (Julie Ann Taylor (Izayoi and Kokone) as Mu-12 sounds like Cristina Vee's Mu-12 and Spike Spencer as Hazama for an additional scene), others were quite jarring (Steve Kramer as Bang in place of Tony Oliver, and Laura Bailey (Platinum The Trinity) as Rachel instead of Mela Lee), and Doug Erholtz makes a better Hazama than Erik Davies, when back then, people thought it was Erholtz who played him in Calamity Trigger and Continuum Shift. Chronophantasma reversed almost all of the VA changes (which was due to time constraints causing a rushed localization effort), but Kramer and Erholtz were kept as Bang and Hazama respectively.
- Alexis Tipton replaced Laura Bailey as Platinum The Trinity in the Alter Memory anime and Cross Tag Battle.
- The Japanese-exclusive mobile game BlazBlue Alternative: Dark War has Kagura Mutsuki be played by Daisuke Namikawa instead of Keiji Fujiwara, the latter of whom succumbed to cancer in April 2020.
- BioShock 2 has Jodelle Ferland voicing the Little Sisters, as opposed to Juliet Landau - which was at least a teenager doing a Creepy Child, instead of a woman over 40. Landau still returned to the role in Burial at Sea.
- The voice clips for Boogerman in his eponymous game were provided by Michael McConnohie. His Guest Fighter appearance in ClayFighter 63⅓ was voiced by Dan Castellaneta.
- Borderlands 2 replaced the voice actors for both Roland and Mordecai. Roland went from sounding less like Unreal Tournament III's version of Malcolm (complete with gangsta-isms) who took everything not very seriously, to a very straight-faced leader-sounding sort of person. Mordecai was given an accent and a bit of a slur.
- In the Broken Sword series, the main character George Stobbart's voice is always Rolf Saxon. But Nicole Collard, the second main character in most of them, has been voiced by a different actress in each game: Hazel Ellerby in The Shadow of the Templar (also known as "Circle of Blood"), Jenny Caron Hall in The Smoking Mirror, Sarah Crook in The Sleeping Dragon, Katherine Pageon in The Angel of Death (also known as Secrets of the Ark) and Emma Tate in The Serpent's Curse.
- Call of Duty:
- In the first Black Ops game, Jason Hudson was played by Ed Harris. However, for Call of Duty: Black Ops II, he was replaced by Michael Keaton. Doesn't sound too bad on paper, but Keaton's voice is considerably less deep and gravelly than Harris's, and since the character was supposed to be 20 years older in the second game, the transition is quite rough.
- Black Ops has a single-game example with John F. Kennedy - in the singleplayer mission "U.S.D.D." he is voiced by Chriss Anglin, who attempts to realistically mimic JFK's voice, while in the Zombies level "Five" he's voiced by Jim Meskimen, who goes the So Bad, It's Good route of the stereotypical, comedic exaggeration of JFK's voice.
- Modern Warfare 3 replaced the actors for Overlord and MacMillan, though that can be justified (someone new could have taken over as "Overlord Actual" between the two games, and MacMillan is twenty years older than he was when we last saw him). Less justifiably, Nikolai's actor has also been replaced, complete with his final line from MW2 being redubbed with the new actor in the intro to MW3.
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood for the PC-Engine starred Jin Horikawa as Richter Belmont, Yoko Teppozuka as Maria Renard and Hiroya Ishimaru as Dracula. In its PlayStation sequel Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, they were replaced by Kiyoyuki Yanada, Chisa Yokoyama, and Norio Wakamoto in that order.
- In between Condemned: Criminal Origins and Condemned 2: Bloodshot, lab tech Rosa Angel dropped 30 lbs and 20 years. Ethan, the Vanhorns, and Ferrel also got new voice actors as well, two of the four switching to Paul Eiding.
- For Conduit 2, Mark Sheppard's Agent Ford was replaced by Jon St. John. Kevin Sorbo's Prometheus was also replaced.
- Crash Bandicoot:
- In the original game, Crash, Dr. Neo Cortex, and Dr. Nitrus Brio were all voiced by Brendan O'Brien. Chip Chinery provided Crash's voice in Crash Team Racing, then he was voiced by Steve Blum in Crash Nitro Kart and by Jess Harnell starting from Crash Tag Team Racing. Cortex was voiced by Clancy Brown from Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back to Crash Nitro Kart, where Lex Lang took over in Crash Twinsanity. Maurice LaMarche voiced Brio in Crash: Mind Over Mutant and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy before being replaced by Tom Kenny in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled.
- David Siller originally provided Aku Aku's voice when he appears and disappears during gameplay in all of the games where he appeared as an item. In the cutscenes of Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped he's voiced by Mel Winkler up until Crash of the Titans, where he's now voiced by Greg Eagles.
- N. Gin was voiced by O'Brien in his first appearance in Cortex Strikes Back. Corey Burton voiced him in the intro of Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex, Quinton Flynn voiced him in Crash Nitro Kart and Twinsanity, and Nolan North voiced him starting from Crash Tag Team Racing until Burton returned in N. Sane Trilogy and Nitro-Fueled.
- In Cortex Strikes Back, Coco was voiced by Vicky Winters. Hynden Walch took over in Crash Team Racing, then starting from The Wrath of Cortex she was voiced by Debi Derryberry.
- Papu Papu's grunts in the first game were provided by David Siller. Michael Gollom voiced him in Crash Team Racing, then Dwight Schultz in Twinsanity and beyond.
- Uka Uka was voiced by Clancy Brown in his first appearances, up until Twinsanity where he's voiced by Alex Fernandez. In Crash of the Titans, he's given a completely new design and to go with it is voiced by John DiMaggio. In N. Sane Trilogy he goes back to his original design, with DiMaggio's take on the character sounding more like Brown's voice, though in Nitro-Fueled he went back to a voice that sounds more like his other roles.
- DiMaggio also voices Ebenezer Von Clutch in Nitro-Fueled, who was originally voiced by Danny Mann.
- Dingodile was voiced by William Hootkins in Warped, then by David Anthony Pizzuto in Crash Team Racing, Dwight Schultz in Crash Nitro Kart and Twinsanity, and Fred Tatasciore in N. Sane Trilogy.
- Fake Crash was voiced by Michael Connor in Warped and Crash Team Racing, then by Dwight Schultz in Crash Nitro Kart and by Andrew Morgado in Nitro-Fueled.
- N. Oxide was voiced by David Anthony Pizzuto in Crash Team Racing, then by Quinton Flynn in Nitro Kart and by Corey Burton in Nitro-Fueled.
- Crunch was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson in The Wrath of Cortex and Nitro Kart, then by Chris Williams in subsequent appearances until Nitro-Fueled had him voiced by Ike Amadi. Ironically, Richardson was in the same game, but as the voice of Stew Gizzard Lips, taking over from Duane Shepard.
- Nina Cortex was originally The Voiceless, but her grunts in Twinsanity were provided by Susan Silo. In Crash Tag Team Racing to Mind Over Mutant she was voiced by Amy Gross, but was voiced by Debi Derryberry in the Nintendo DS version of Crash of the Titans, who reprised her role as the character in Nitro-Fueled.
- Derryberry also took over as the voice of Pasadena O'Possum in Nitro-Fueled from Shanelle Workman in Tag Team Racing.
- Roger Craig Smith replaces Quinton Flynn as the voice of Chick Gizzard Lips in Nitro-Fueled.
- Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time sees yet another major cast shakeup, as Scott Whyte and Eden Riegel replace Jess Harnell and Debi Derryberry as Crash and Coco respectively, Ursula Taherian replaces Derryberry (who provided her various gasps and grunts in N. Sane Trilogy) and Misty Lee (her voice actress in Nitro-Fueled) as Tawna, J.P. Karliak replaces Corey Burton as N. Tropy despite Burton still voicing N. Gin and Oxide, and Roger Craig Smith replaces Tom Kenny as N. Brio. Lex Lang, Fred Tatasciore, and Greg Eagles do reprise their respective roles as Cortex, Dingodile, and Aku Aku, however.
- Crash: On the Run! sees Harnell and Derryberry returning to replace Whyte and Riegel by way of reused voice lines from N. Sane Trilogy and Nitro-Fueled.
D to F
- In Dark Seed Mike Dawson is portrayed by the creator of the same name, Mike Dawson. In Dark Seed II, Mike is portrayed by Chris Gilbert and apart from the wardrobe, there's almost no similarity between the two.
- DC Universe Online:
- When the game first started, Arleen Sorkin had reprised her role as Harley Quinn. However, when creating new content, Arleen wasn't doing the voice anymore. Instead, they went for Jen Brown (Pyrrha Nikos of RWBY, Agent Carolina of Red vs. Blue).
- When the game was first released, Adam Baldwin reprises his Superman: Doomsday role as the titular Man of Steel and Gina Torres voiced Wonder Woman. However, in later content, they were replaced with George Newbern and Susan Eisenberg in the respective roles, which, given Kevin Conroy was already Batman, means the DC Animated Universe Trinity is complete.
- Dead or Alive:
- Kasumi was first voiced by Sakura Tange. From Dead Or Alive 3 onwards, she is voiced by Houko Kuwashima - although Dead Or Alive Ultimate 2 had the option to choose between Tange and Kuwashima.
- Tina had a different VA in the first game before her current actress Yuko Nagashima took over. Bayman was voiced by Hisao Egawa in the first two games and by Banjo Ginga in all the following ones. Dimensions had numerous replacements, notably seeing Jann Lee, Brad Wong, Raidou, Leon, Bass, and Gen Fu all recast with new voice actors (though in the latter three examples, it's justified as their original voice actors [Koji Totani, Daisuke Gori and Takeshi Aono, respectively] passed away before recording for the new game).
- On the English side of things, almost all of the characters returning for Dead or Alive 5 from DOA Dimensionsnote had different voice actors, with the only exceptions being Ryu Hayabusa (Troy Bakernote ), Hayate (Yuri Lowenthal), Hitomi (Eden Riegel), Tina (Kate Higgins) and Brad Wong (Grant George).
- Destiny and Destiny 2:
- In the original base game, your Ghost was voiced by Peter Dinklage, but it quickly became apparent that Dinklage's schedule wasn't free enough for him to regularly come back for expansions and sequels, so he stepped down and Nolan North took over (and has played the role ever since). They didn't even bother to try and hide the switch, as Dinklage and North's voices for the character are completely different.
- North later had to fill in again, this time for Nathan Fillion, when a prior commitment prevented him for coming back to voice Cayde-6 for “Forsaken”. Unlike the above example, North does an extremely good imitation of Fillion, to the point that some people never even noticed the switch until it was pointed out. What's crazy about this example is that the commitment Fillion had was an Uncharted fan film where he played Nathan Drake... a role typically played by Nolan North. So North was being the Other Darrin for his own Other Darrin.
- In her first appearance, Ana Bray was voiced by Jamie Chung. From Season of the Worthy onwards, the role was recast with Erika Ishii. Presumably, like Dinklage, Chung's schedule wasn't free enough to make regular returns.
- Gina Torres was Ikora Rey's voice for the entirety of the first game and for most of her appearances in the second up until Season of the Splicer, which saw her replaced with Mara Junot.
- Dead Rising: Isabela Keyes went through three voice actresses in the trilogy, where she was voiced by Kim Mai Guest in the original, Venus Terzo in the Case West portion of Dead Rising 2, and Veronica Diaz in Dead Rising 3.
- After a contract disagreement with THQ, Richard Horvitz and Grant Albrecht were replaced as Pox and Crypto for the spin-off game Destroy All Humans!: Big Willy Unleashed. The fans did not take to well to the replacement actors, but the originals came back for later games in the series.
- Devil May Cry
- Dante has had three voice actors, four if you count the one in the Japanese version of the anime. His voice actor (who, incidentally, is also his Ink-Suit Actor) only began to remain consistent starting from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening.
- The same could be said of every recurring character excluding Lady (who has kept Kari Wahlgren as her voice actress since Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, though she too had a different voice in The Animated Series) and Nero (who has consistently been voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch). The aforementioned Dante example is muddled further if one considers Dante's Special Guest appearance in the PlayStation 2 version of Viewtiful Joe. Although it came out a year after Devil May Cry 2 (where he was voiced by Matthew Kaminsky), Dante is based on his DMC1 appearance and keeps his DMC1 voice actor voice actor (Drew Coombs). Thus, the voice actor progression went from Drew Coombs, to Matthew Kaminsky, then back to Drew Coombs, and then finally to Reuben Langdon, who has stayed as Dante's voice since the third game.
- Devil May Cry 2 also features Dante's outfit from the first game as an unlockable costume; when using this outfit, his voice clips in normal gameplay are replaced with those of Drew Coombs from the first game.
- DmC: Devil May Cry has Tim Phillipps voice Dante, but that's a different Dante; appearances of the classic Dante since continue to be voiced by Reuben Langdon in English and Toshiyuki Morikawa in those games with Japanese vocals.
- Disgaea:
- Etna was originally voiced by Amanda Winn-Lee, but Michelle Ruff took her place in all of the character's other appearances.
- Asagi is voiced by a different voice actor in every single appearance. This is done deliberately and the one time they reused a voice actor she outright says "I'm being voiced by the same person for the first time, dood."
- In Makai Kingdom, Zetta was voiced by Crispin Freeman, but in every other installment he has different voice actors (Richard Epcar in Disgaea 2 and Patrick Seitz in Disgaea 4).
- The video game Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers is notable for featuring Gyro Gearloose and Gladstone Gander as supporting characters as well as Merlock from DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp as the Big Bad, but Hal Smith, Rob Paulsen, and Christopher Lloyd did not get to reprise any of the characters (Hal Smith because he died long before the game was developed and the other two because they apparently weren't available). As a result, the former character is instead played by Frank Welker while the latter two are played by Corey Burton.
- Between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, a few characters were recast. Victoria Kruger replaced Mika Simmons as Isabela, because there were concerns about the vocal similarity between Isabela and Queen Anora being too obvious with Isabela in a more major role. Adam Howden replaced Greg Ellis as Anders because Ellis couldn't commit to the recording schedule for such a major character. Merrill was a bit part in the first game voiced by Erin Matthews, and when she became a full party member for Dragon Age II, she was recast with Eve Myles.
- DuckTales Remastered is well known for WayForward being able to recruit virtually every possible voice actor from the old cartoon, even Alan Young (who was 94 at the time) and June Foray (who was 95). However, three actors had already passed on prior to this - Joan Gerber, Hal Smith, and Hamilton Camp, the voices of Mrs. Beakley, Gyro Gearloose, Flintheart Glomgold, and Fenton Crackshell/Gizmoduck. For this, Wendee Lee, Chris Edgerly, Brian George and Eric Bauza took up their roles respectively.
- Dynasty Warriors:
- The English version of the spinoff series Dynasty Warriors: Gundam had to recast all the characters, since Bandai couldn't get ahold of the men and women at The Ocean Group to have them reprise their roles. Also, one of the actors had left a long time ago.
- In the second game, the voice for Judau changed from Sean Broadhurst to Andrew Francis.
- Most of the original voices did return for DWG. The only notable replacements were Louis Chirillo as Heero (Mark Hildreth refuses to reprise the role after bad convention experiences) and Phil Fulton as Domon (Mark Gatha is now a dentist and no longer does voice acting).
- In the first two Fallout games, Harold was voiced by Charlie Adler, but then for Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, the character was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer, and then for Fallout 3, he was voiced by Stephen Russell.
- Final Fantasy: Square Enix has a great track record of Role Reprises for characters from the series. Whether characters were first voiced in their original game* , sequel, prequel, spin-off, or through their appearances in the Kingdom Hearts series, chances are a character's respective voice actor will make a reprise for another project. So, when this trope occurs, it really stands out.
- Final Fantasy VII: Although most of the cast is reused among the sequels and spinoffs such as Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts, several actors have been replaced:
- Aerith, who was voiced by Mandy Moore in Kingdom Hearts, Mena Suvari in Kingdom Hearts II and Advent Children, and Andrea Bowen in Crisis Core.
- Sephiroth was voiced by Lance Bass in Kingdom Hearts and George Newbern everywhere else.
- Yuffie was voiced by Christy Carlson Romano in Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts and Mae Whitman in Kingdom Hearts II and Dirge of Cerberus.
- Robin Atkin Downes provided the English voice for Genesis Rhapsodos in Dirge of Cerberus, while Oliver Quinn played him in Crisis Core.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake recasts every character that received an official English voice actor throughout the years since 2002note . As such, Cody Christian replaces Steve Burton as Cloud, John Eric Bentley replaces Beau Billingslea as Barret, Britt Baron replaces Rachael Leigh Cook as Tifa, and Tyler Hoechlin replaces George Newbern as Sephiroth. In turn, this makes Burton and Billingslea The Other Marties as they voiced Cloud and Barret respectively in the remake's PSX 2015 trailer. And as mentioned above, Aerith was Darrin'd before and now Briana White becomes her fourth voice actress, replacing Andrea Bowen. Oddly enough, Square has said that their original VAs will retain those roles in non-Remake productions, such as future Kingdom Hearts titles or new Final Fantasy spin-offs.
- The Dissidia series had Keith Ferguson and Keith Szarabajka respectively substitute for Michael E. Rodgers and John DiMaggio as Gabranth and Gilgamesh.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, the entire English cast save for a few Ishgardian-established characters from post-release patches got Darrin'd when SquareEnix decided to change studios in between patch 2.55 and the Heavensward expansion, moving from Los Angeles to London. The character Yugiri Mistwalker was forced into this trope again when her second voice actress was murdered six months after the release of the expansion.
- Final Fantasy VII: Although most of the cast is reused among the sequels and spinoffs such as Crisis Core and Kingdom Hearts, several actors have been replaced:
- In the tie-in game for Finding Nemo, Jess Harnell replaces Albert Brooks as Marlin and Barry Humphries as Bruce, and Jennifer Hale replaces Ellen DeGeneres as Dory. Bizarrely, Bruce's lines in the movie cutscenes were completely redubbed while Marlin and Dory's lines remain untouched.
- Fire Emblem:
- An old OVA adaption of the first few chapters of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light received an English dub in 1998. None of the voice actors who appeared in the OVA would reprise their roles later in the series; Spike Spencer was replaced as Marth by Yuri Lowenthal in Code Name: S.T.E.A.Mnote and the other characters were replaced for their appearances in Fire Emblem Heroes.
- Ever since his first appearance in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Ike has been voiced by Jason Adkins, who is based in Seattlenote . Even though the voice acting sessions of Code Name: S.T.E.A.M and Fire Emblem Fates took place in LA, Adkins was called in to reprise his role as Ike. However, once Ike returned as one of the units in Fire Emblem Heroes, Greg Chun became his new voice actor, which carries over into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
- In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Mist goes from Elsbeth Nathanson to Lani Minella and the Black Knight goes from Mark Dias to David Frederick White.
- In the case of their appearances in Heroes, the same goes for all other characters from the Tellius games (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn). Mia is the only exception, as she is still voiced by Lani Minella. Strangely enough, there are 2 other roles that Minella doesn't reprise in Heroes. The first is Micaiah from Radiant Dawn, who is now voiced by Veronica Taylor and the other is Lyndisnote , with Wendee Lee taking over the role.
- Gideon Emery voices Gaius in Fire Emblem: Awakening, but he was replaced with Ray Chase (who also serves as the current voice actor for Roy) for Heroes. In addition, Laura Bailey voiced Lucina from Awakening up until her first variation in Heroes; the role was recast to Alexis Tipton for Lucina: Spring Exalt, who would go on to voice her ever since. Tipton also replaces Bailey as Palla from Heroes to Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.
- Fire Emblem Fates has many examples of voice actors being replaced for Heroes. Hinoka and Peri are voiced by Cindy Robinson instead of Elizabeth Daily; Takumi and Niles are voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas instead of Roger Rose; Camilla is voiced by Misty Lee instead of Paula Tiso; Inigo/Laslow is voiced by Mick Wingert instead of Liam O'Brien; Soleil is voiced by Michelle Ruff instead of Amber Hood; Siegbert is voiced by Todd Haberkorn instead of David Stanbra; Female Kana is voiced by Eden Riegel instead of Danielle Judovits; Male Kana is voiced by Sandy Fox instead of Laura Faye Smith; Kaze is voiced by Xander Mobus instead of David Stanbra; Garon is voiced by Patrick Seitz instead of Travis Willingham.
- In Heroes itself, Erin Fitzgerald voices the original variations of Olwen and Sanaki. For their variations, she is respectively replaced with Tara Sands and Sara Cravens (credited as Sara Beth).
- In Fire Emblem Engage, Anna is not voiced by Karen Strassman as usual, but is instead voiced by Monica Rial. Despite the fact Anna is presented as a young child, Strassman is already very much used to voicing young children (with Nanako being a prime example).
- The first expansion pack for First Encounter Assault Recon has a brief section where you meet up with Norton Mapes again, who has a different voice actor than he did in the base game. What makes this especially odd is that the other major returning characters (Holiday, Jin, and Fettel) all kept their original voice actors, and the second expansion managed to bring back Commissioner Betters' actor as well (his only lines in Extraction Point were re-used from the original). Most other characters to show up in more than one game are subject to this, however - Genevieve Aristide goes from Meg Savlov in the first game to Jen Taylor in the second, Jin Sun-Kwon goes from Susanna Burney in the first to Kim Mai Guest in the third, and Harlan Wade, though keeping Grant Goodeve as his voice for a single line in the second game, is replaced by a different actor entirely for the third; the only characters to keep the same voice across every appearance in the series are Paxton Fettel, who is consistently Peter Lurie, and the Replica soldiers, who are always Mark Lund.
- Enforced in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise: being a Fist of the North Star-themed Like a Dragon spin-off, every character in the game is voiced by their counterpart from the main games, including (but not limited to) Takaya Kuroda (Kiryu) as Kenshiro, Hidenari Ugaki (Majima) as Jagi, Masami Iwasaki (Ryuji Goda) as Raoh, and Rie Kugimiya (Haruka) as Rin.
G to I
- Galaxy Angel II has most of the voice actors from the original Galaxy Angel trilogy reprising their respective roles. The sole exception is Coco Nutmilk, whose original voice actress Ruri Asano is replaced by Rina Sato in Mugen Kairou no Kagi and Eigou Kaiki no Toki.
- Genshin Impact: Tighnari was originally voiced by Elliot Gindi, but after Gindi was fired over allegations of sexual misconduct, he was replaced with Diary of a Wimpy Kid star Zachary Gordon from Version 3.6 onwards, with all of Tighnari's voice lines re-recorded by Gordon.
- In Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Alex Mallari Jr. and Alix Wilton Regan replace Steve Byers and Andrea Deck as Nomad (male and female respectively).
- God of War
- Lead character Kratos's voice actor was changed from Terrence C. Carson to Christopher Judge. Word of God states this was due to the Mo-Cap tech with Judge being closer to Kratos's height.
- The second game saw history repeat itself with Corey Burton replacing Paul Eiding as Zeus, having originally replaced Rip Torn as the character in Hercules: The Animated Series. Burton was himself as replaced by Fred Tatasciore in God of War: Ghost of Sparta. In God of War (PS4), Zeus was a case of The Original Darrin and Burton returned.
- Carole Ruggier, who voiced Athena in God of War and God of War II was replaced by Erin Torpey from God of War: Chains of Olympus onward. Until the PS4 game, where Athena, like Zeus, underwent The Original Darrin and saw Ruggier return.
- One of the changes made for GoldenEye (2010) was to replace Pierce Brosnan's James Bond with Daniel Craig. To make the replacement less jarring, all of the other characters in the single player campaign have also had their appearances completely altered as well. They're all new designs (some based on the voice actors), but it does fail a little in terms of polish.
- Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters:
- Ryan Reynolds reprise his role from the film the game is based on as Hal Jordan, but every other character involved is voiced by a different actor from the one who played them in the movie.
- Kilowog is voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson rather than the late Michael Clarke Duncan.
- Sinestro is voiced by Marton Csokas instead of Mark Strong.
- Gwent: The Witcher Card Game: Charles Dance did not return to reprise his role of Nilfgaardian Emperor Emhyr var Emreis from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and his replacement sounds noticeably different.
- The cast between .hack//Roots and .hack//G.U. shifted. Roots was dubbed in Canada by The Ocean Group, while GU's voice work was done in America (Bang Zoom! Entertainment).
- Half-Life: Alyx has James Moses Black replacing the late Robert Guillaume as the voice of Eli Vance. The role of Alyx herself, previously held by Merle Dandridge, was given to Ozioma Akagha in order to give her a more youthful voice, since Alyx is set five years prior to Half-Life 2.
- Halo:
- Between Halo 2 and Halo 3, the voice for Miranda Keyes changed from Julie Benz to Justis Bolding. Although, they do sound pretty similar.
- Also between 2 and 3, the Prophet of Truth's voice changed from Micheal Wincott to Terence Stamp.
- Though Heretic Leader Sesa 'Refumee was voiced by Miguel Ferrer in Halo 2's campaign, his voice was changed to John DiMaggio in the Anniversary terminals.
- In Halo Wars 2, Captain Cutter's voice changed from Gregg Berger to Gideon Emery, Ellen Anders's voice changed from Kim Mai Guest to Faye Kingslee / Kate Pippinger, Jerome-092 went from Crispin Freeman / Gideon Emery to Mark Deklin / Nik Doner, Alice-130 went from Leigh-Allyn Baker to Nika Futterman / Erin Stewart, and Douglas-042's voice changed to Matthew Waterson. Also, Sergeant Johnson ended up being voiced by an uncredited actor instead of Bungie-era stalwart David Scully, due to the latter being involved in a major strike at the time.
- Jameson Locke was voiced by Mike Colter in the Halo 2: Anniversary terminals (and portrayed by him in Halo: Nightfall), but Ike Amadi became his voice actor for Halo 5: Guardians due to scheduling conflicts. Ike Amadi would then also go on to replace John DiMaggio as the voice of Atriox in Halo Infinite, who first voiced him in Halo Wars 2.
- Linda-058 was voiced by Andrea Bogart during her brief appearance in Halo 2: Anniversary, but in Guardians, her voice actress is Brittany Uomoleale .
- The cast of Hatoful Boyfriend is entirely birds, played by single still images of said birds, sometimes with clothes or blood drawn over top. Their creator refers to the birds photographed as their 'actors' and meticulously credits sources and requests the use of their images for each game and project. When Anghel's source didn't respond she brought in a new 'actor', likewise with Ryouta.
- The Brazilian dubs for the Harry Potter games were made in São Paulo, thus they lacked the voice cast from the movies, all from Rio. And at times it was limited: in the first game, Harry and Draco shared the same voice!
- Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: The video game adaptation had the entire cast reprise their roles except for Stephen Colbert as Phil Ken Sebben and Myron Reducto; they were instead respectively voiced by Stephen Stanton and Crispin Freeman.
- Done within the same game in Heavy Rain for the DLC The Taxidermist, where the character of Madison Paige (the only returning character) quite blatantly has a completely different voice. This was because The Taxidermist had been created as a gameplay demo a couple of years before release, when the final voice actors hadn't been cast. Quantic Dream just decided to save the trouble of recording Madison's lines again with the actress from the main game.
- Hitman:
- Three different women have voiced Diana Burnwood. Vivienne McKee voiced her for Silent Assassin, Contracts, and Blood Money, but the character was recast to Marsha Thomason in Absolution. Diana was then played by Jane Perry (who was also in Absolution in a different role) for Hitman: Sniper, and then World of Assassination Trilogy, and has remained the current voice actor for her.
- Hitman: Absolution also replaced David Bateson, who had voiced Agent 47 since the beginning of the series, with William Mapother. However, following fan backlash, Bateson was called back in at the last second and did end up voicing the character, though 47's motion capture and face model is still Mapother's in the final product. Bateson has continued to voice 47 ever since.
- From Hitman 2 onward, almost all of the American civilian and bodyguard voice actors were replaced with a different set of actors, with the exception of Derek Hagen. As a result of this, Pam Kingsley is played by Salli Saffioti instead of Rochelle Greenwood.
- From Hitman 2 onward, Richard Teverson voices Ort-Meyer in a flashback that features in the "Long Shot" cinematic, rather than his original voice actor Kerry Shale. Interestingly, Shale is also voice acting in this game; he voices Carl Ingram, and continues to do so in 3, so this was likely a result of major story characters being given unique voice actors to avoid any potential player confusion, rather than a random recast.
- In Hitman 3, Isaura Barbé-Brown replaces Michelle Asante as Olivia Hall, who had played the character for the first two games. Isaura does voice a few civilians in 2016 (and Dalia Margolis in "The Pharmacist" Elusive Target).
- Injustice 2 features some characters change voice actors from the first game, including Steve Blum replacing Adam Baldwin as Hal Jordan, and Scott Porter and Taliesin Jaffe replacing Neal McDonough in the respective roles of Damian Wayne and Barry Allen.
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- Jak and Daxter:
- Jak's voice actor was replaced in The Lost Frontier (from Mike Erwin to Josh Keaton).
- Keira, the hero's main love interest, changed voice for the third game (from Anna Garduno to Tara Strong).
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle was released back in 2013, when only the first two manga storylines had been adapted in the anime, meaning many of the characters didn't yet have anime voice actors who could reprise their roles. In 2022, All-Star Battle received an Updated Re-release entitled All-Star Battle R, which redid the voice lines for most of roster in order to incorporate the actors who'd been cast in the anime after the release of the original game. As such, Yuki Ono replaced Wataru Hatano as Josuke Higashikata, Kensho Ono replaced Daisuke Namikawa as Giorno Giovanna, and Fairouz Ai replaced Miyuki Sawashiro as Jolyne Cujoh, among many other recasts.
- Jump Force averts this for almost all of its characters, except for Kenshiro, who was originally voiced by Akira Kamiya. While Kamiya reprises his role as Ryo Saeba, his age prevents him from performing Kenshiro's iconic "ATATATATATATA" battle cries. As such, Kenshiro's role is taken over by Katsuyuki Konishi.
- Kingdom Hearts:
- David Warner was invited back to II voice his TRON characters Sark and the MCP, and apparently was very enthusiastic about revisiting the roles, but was unable to do so because of previous commitments. The parts were instead voiced by veteran voice actor Corey Burton, with many fans not even realizing it wasn't Warner.
- Like with Star Wars, Corey Burton also replaced Christopher Lee as DiZ for RE:Chain of Memories, though this imitation is not as good as others of his. Strangely, Christopher Lee came back as DiZ in 358/2 Days. Lee would end up being The Other Marty to Burton when both games were included in the Kingdom Hearts HD Ⅰ.5 ReMIX compilation and Days was remade as a cutscene movie, for which Burton redubbed the lines Lee originally recorded for the game to maintain vocal consistency between the two.
- Naminé is voiced by Brittany Snow in II, but she has been voiced by Meaghan Martin since RE:Chain of Memories. In the remaster of II, Snow's lines are retained, but Martin dubs the other scenes that were added for Final Mix.
- Kairi is mostly voiced by Hayden Panettiere, but is replaced by Alyson Stoner for 358/2 Days. By III, it seems that Stoner has permanently replaced Panettiere as Kairi's voice actor, possibly to make it consistent that she and Xion (who is voiced by Stoner) have the same voice. Bizarrely, Xion is voiced by Panettiere in Dream Drop Distance, making her the Other Darrin for Stoner.
- Perhaps most notable of all was the replacement of Ansem's voice actor from the original game, Billy Zane, with the decidedly less hammy Richard Epcar from II onwards.
- Plus in general, the characters voiced by big stars had their original voice actors not return such as Genie (Robin Williams), Mushu (Eddie Murphy), and Phil (Danny DeVito) in Kingdom Hearts (or really any Disney property aside from the original film). Some of them such as James Woods (Hades), Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts), and David Ogden Stiers (Cogsworth) did return, however. This became interesting in II, where two actors (Tate Donovan and Glenn Shadix) reprised roles they didn't in the first game (Hercules and the Mayor of Halloween Town respectively). In other words, they became The Original Darrins to their own other Darrins.
- About half the cast of The Lion King had new voices in Kingdom Hearts II with the exception of Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), Rafiki (Robert Guillaume), Banzai (Marin), and Ed (JimCummings) who did have their original voice actors return. Young Simba and Mufasa had their original VA's return by way of reusing audio from the original film. Also the entire cast of Pirates of the Caribbean was replaced as the original cast was shooting the sequels and couldn't return (although they did want to).
- Captain Jack Sparrow was voiced by James Arnold Taylor in Kingdom Hearts II, and by Jared Butler in Kingdom Hearts III.
- While Eugene and Mother Gothel's voice actors reprised their role in the Tangled world for Kingdom Hearts III, one VA that did not return was Rapunzel who was voiced by Kelsey Lansdowne rather than Mandy Moore (strange, considering that Mandy Moore had already appeared in the Kingdom Hearts series as Aerith and generally reprises the role in other media).
- All the Organization XIII members introduced in Chain of Memories (who were voiced by staff members), gained different voices in the remake and later appearances. The exception to this was Axel, but only in the Japanese version—since they didn't bother dubbing the voices, we have an interesting case where an English voice actor plays the other Darrin to his Japanese counterpart. Though this is all justified as the original Chain of Memories had mostly Voice Grunting and small phrases recycled from the original game (hard to get a fully voiced Game Boy Advance game).
- Justified for the voice of Mickey in Kingdom Hearts. After the passing of Wayne Allwine in May 2009, Bret Iwan took over starting with Birth by Sleep.
- The Japanese dub did quite a bit of this. As with the dub of House of Mouse, Tōru Ōkawa Darrined Akira Kamiya as Iago.
- Due to the unfortunate loss of both Chikao Ohtsuka and Leonard Nimoy, Master Xehanort in Kingdom Hearts III was voiced by Akio Ōtsuka and Rutger Hauer in Japanese and English, respectively (the former being his predecessor’s son and the character’s Time-Shifted Actor, the latter having a connection to a sci-fi property like his own predecessor). With Hauer's death a mere six months after III, he was himself replaced with Christopher Lloyd in the Kingdom Hearts III: Re𝄌Mind DLC and the next game Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.
- Hayner, Pence, and Olette were originally voiced respectively by Justin Cowden, Sean Marquette, and Jessica DiCicco in Kingdom Hearts II. In Kingdom Hearts III, they're instead voiced by Zach Gordon, Tristian Chase, and Ashley Boettcher. In Japanese, Hayner and Olette were voiced by Kazunori Sasaki and Yuka Hirasawa in II and by Makuto Suto and Yuna Watanabe in III.
- The King of Fighters:
- Akoya Sougi voiced Mai Shiranui in both the Fatal Fury and The King Of Fighters series. In the KOF: Sky Stage game, she's replaced by Ami Koshimizu, who takes over as Mai in the main series starting in KOF XIII.
- Athena Asamiya is the uber-example of Darrining. She's had five seiyuus: Reiko Fukai (KOF '94) to Moe Nagasaki ('95) to Tamao Satou ('96) to Yukina Kurisu ('97) to Haruna Ikezawa ('98). They've seemed to have stuck with Ikezawa since, though.
- Robert Garcia is an interesting example. His first voice actor (Eiji Yano in Art of Fighting) was replaced by Kazuhiro Inage for Art of Fighting 2, The King of Fighters '94 and '95. After that, Mantaro Koichi replaced him for Art of Fighting 3 and The King of Fighters '96, and provided Robert's voice for every game up to KOF 2003. Then in Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, Inage returned to voice Robert and continued until Go Shinomiya took over the part in The King of Fighters XIV.
- Geese Howard's first voice was Katsuhisa Namase in Fatal Fury Special. Kong Kuwata took the reins for Fatal Fury 3, and is now the voice most closely associated with Geese.
- The King of Fighters XIV marked the series' official transition from 2D graphics to 3D ones, with a number of characters being recast in the process. These included Tomoaki Maeno replacing Masahiro Nonaka as Kyo Kusanagi, Takashi Kondo replacing Satoshi Hashimoto as Terry Bogard, Takanori Hoshino replacing Kunihiko Yasui as Iori Yagami, Seiko Yoshida replacing Masae Yumi as Leona, Tomo Kasaya replacing Yoshinori Shima as Clark Still, Daiki Takakura replacing Masaki Usui as Ryo Sakazaki, Ai Kakuma replacing Kaori Horie as Yuri Sakazaki, Hiroshi Okamoto replacing Keiichi Nanba as Andy Bogard, Sarah Emi Bridcutt replacing Harumi Ikoma as Blue Mary, Yūma Uchida replacing Eiji Takemoto as Rock Howard, Kōzō Mito replacing Nobuyuki Hiyama as Joe Higashi, Yoshihisa Kawahara replacing Yuuki Matsuda as K' and Miki Ogura replacing Mayumi Shintani as Angel. The King of Fighters XV would continue this trend, with KENN replacing Nozomu Sasaki as Krohnen/K9999, Erina Seto relacing Hazuki Nishikawa as Shermie, and Tsuguo Mogami replacing Toshimitsu Arai and Norio Wakamoto as Rugal Bernstein, among others.
- Kirby:
- Kirby mostly averts this, being almost universally voiced by Makiko Ohmoto, but he was voiced by Mayumi Tanaka instead in his first three voiced appearances: a Kirby's Adventure drama CD, the Mario Kirby Masterpiece OVA, and Kirby Super Star.
- Meta Knight's universally Atsushi Kisaichi in Japanese, except for main series games starting with Kirby's Return to Dream Land, where he's voiced by one of the designers. English is a different story, he's Eric Stuart in the anime and Eric Newsome in Super Smash Bros., and the designer's voice was kept for Return to Dream Land onwards. Fans are split as to which one is better.
- King Dedede originally was universally series creator Masahiro Sakurai, but after he left the series in Kirby Air Ride to pursue personal goals, he only returned for Smash Bros., while Shinya Kumazaki took over for the games and Kenichi Ogata for the anime. This is the same for English releases, except for the anime, where he's dubbed over by Ted Lewis. An odd case as both Darrins have coexisted with each other between releases, with both Smash Bros. and Kirby receiving titles each with their own voice actor.
- League of Legends: Champions would occasionally have their original voice actor replaced when they're given a legendary skin or a visual and/or gameplay overhaul:
- Olaf is normally voiced by an unlisted VA in English and by Vicente Gil in European Spanish. His Brolaf skin is voiced by Logan 'Lomar' Margulies in English and by Paco Vaquero in European Spanish.
- Kevin M. Connolly ordinarily voices Vladimir, but Gavin Hammon provides a Darker and Edgier voice for his Blood Lord skin.
- Danielle McRae originally voiced Karma. After her 2013 rework, she's voiced by Rashida Clendening.
- Nasus was voiced by Eugene McDaniels until his visual update in 2013 replaced him with Jonathan Adams.
- Sejuani was voiced by an unlisted actor until Nicki Burke took over for her rework in 2013.
- Veigar is ordinarily voiced by Bob Beal, but Scott McNeil takes over for his Final Boss Veigar skin. McNeil also voiced Maokai before his rework had him now voiced by Jay Preston, and Sion after his rework, taking over the role from J.S. Gilbert.
- Elspeth Eastman voices Tristana after her 2015 rework, taking over from an unlisted actor.
- Gangplank and Taric were originally voiced by Dennis Collins Johnson until their respective reworks had them now voiced by Matthew Mercer and Yuri Lowenthal.
- Master Yi is ordinarily voiced by Micha Berman, but Greg Chun voices him in his PROJECT skin.
- Poppy was voiced by an unlisted VA, then by Kate Higgins with her rework in 2015.
- In English, Ryze was initially voiced by Adam Harrington until his third rework had him now voiced by Sean Schemmel. Likewise, his Mexican Spanish VA went from Humberto Vélez to Gerardo Vásquez, and his European Spanish VA went from Miguel Ayones to Antonio Abenójar.
- Galio was voiced by David Lodge, then by Josh Petersdorf with his rework in 2017. Likewise, his Mexican Spanish VA was Blas García before being replaced by Beto Castillo for the rework.
- Urgot was voiced by an unlisted actor before Paul M. Guyet took over for his 2017 rework.
- Lucian is ordinarily voiced by Patrick Seitz, but T.J. Storm voices him in his High Noon skin.
- Nunu and Willump were voiced by Cristina Milizia and Brian Sommer before their rework in 2018. After, Nunu is voiced by Lucas Jaye while an unlisted actor provides Willump's noises.
- Ezreal was voiced by Kyle Hebert, then by Daniel Amerman with his visual update in 2018.
- Renekton's first Mexican Spanish VA was Gabriel Pingarrón before he was replaced by Octavio Rojas.
- Rumble's first Mexican Spanish VA was Manuel Bueno before he was replaced by Bruno Coronel.
- Riven's normal European Spanish VA is Celia de Diego, but Alma Naranjo voices her Dawnbringer skin.
- Legacy of Kain: Mortanius from Blood Omen was originally voiced by the late Tony Jay, who would voice the Elder God in the sequels. To prevent confusion, they had Alastair Duncan voice Mortanius in Defiance.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past:
- Link is voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa (better known as Link's fellow Super Smash Bros. fighter Marth) in the Sound & Drama CD. In the GBA remake, he uses Young Link's much younger-sounding voice clips from Ocarina of Time, provided by Fujiko Takimoto.
- In the Sound & Drama CD and The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets, Zelda is voiced by Mariko Kouda. Then when she appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Ayumi Fujimura takes the role in a similar way to her descendant in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
- In the 3D titles, Ganondorf was voiced by Takashi Nagasako, but for unknown reasons was replaced by Hironori Miyata in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. This is more noticeable because unlike Link, Zelda, and other recurring characters, Ganondorf is confirmed to always be the same person in each game. Then again, a lot of fans probably didn't notice due to the series' lack of extensive voice acting.
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past:
- Like a Dragon
- Yakuza Kiwami saw several voice actor changes due to the original actors like Tomoyuki Dan (Shindo) and Hiromi Tsuru (Reina) passing away or retiring. In fact, the majority of the actors from the original Yakuza, were replaced by popular voice actors like Maaya Sakamoto, Tomokazu Sugita, and Tōru Ōkawa.
- Yukio Terada was voiced by Kenji Nomura in the original game, but he was replaced by Go Shinomiya in Yakuza 2. Nomura would eventually return as The Original Darrin in Kiwami remakes for both 1 and 2.
- Kaouru Sayama, Kiryu's Love Interest for the second game, was voiced by Yu Daiki in 2 and 3. She was replaced by Aya Hisakawa in Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
- In the english dub of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, many returning characters from the first game were voiced by different actors. Goro Majima, who was voiced by Mark Hamill in Yakuza, is now voiced by Matthew Mercer due to Hamill having declined the offer to reprise the role, while the Bartender of Survive Bar and Chau Ka Long, who are heavily implied to be Osamu Kashiwagi and Lau Ka Long (characters who had been presumed to have died in Yakuza 3), are voiced by David Hayter and Johnny Yong Bosch instead of John DiMaggio and James Horan.
- In the english dub of Yakuza, the protagonist Kazuma Kiryu was voiced by Darryl Kurylo, who would reprise his role nearly fifteen years later in the eighth main entry in the series; Yakuza: Like a Dragon. note However, just a few years later the role of Kiryu was recast, with Yong Yea taking over as the english voice of Kiryu in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
- In Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Daigo Dojima was voiced by Roger Craig Smith in the english dub. In Gaiden and Infinite Wealth he's replaced by Tim Friedlander. Haruka Sawamura was also recast, with Xanthe Huynh taking over for Debi Derryberry who voiced her in Yakuza.
- Infinite Wealth introduces a character similar to Like a Dragon's Bartender of Survive Bar, that being the Bartender of Revolve Bar who is heavily implied to be Andre Richardson, another character who seemingly died in 3. Said character is a unique case as he was voiced by an english speaking actor Charles Glover in 3, but in Infinite Wealth he's voiced by completely different actors in both japanese and english dubs.
- Lunar: The Silver Star:
- In an unusual inversion, when the original game was being remade into Silver Star Story, the original five English actors who did the original returned (along with other local talent from the area the Working Designs studio was), while all four Japanese voice actors from the original were replaced with an entirely new cast. The most notable change was Alex originally having Kikuko Inoue, and then going to Akira Ishida.
- This occurs again in the Silver Star Harmony remake for the PSP, which was localized XSEED Games instead, as Working Designs had long gone out of business. The story as to why depends on who you talked to - Victor Ireland, the former head of Working Designs, claimed the entire voice cast was loyal to him, aside from Jenny Stigle who "broke rank". XSEED, on the other hand, stated that most of the old cast wasn't actually in the business anymore, hence they hadn't tried to find them. Accordingly, Stigle got involved because fans of the original games put her in touch with XSEED. So which story you believe depends on who you trust more, though it was no secret that Ireland had a very bitter falling out with XSEED during the localization process.
- The sequel, Lunar: Eternal Blue, maintained consistent casts for both languages, on the other hand. The only change was Hiro's English voice going from Mark Zempel (Eternal Blue) to Chad Letts (Eternal Blue Complete), but they sound similar to the point that they're almost indistinguishable.
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- Mafia II:
- In this game, Rick Pasqualone voices Vito, who turns out to be the one to deliver the Pre-Mortem One-Liner to Tommy Angelo, the hero of the original Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. In the original game, the line was voiced by Bill Buell.
- Mafia: Definitive Edition, the remake of the original game, has completely new voices for the characters. For example, Andrew Bongiorno voices Tommy Angelo instead of Michael Sorvino, and Jeremy Luke voices Paulie instead of William DeMeo.
- Marvel Heroes: While many alternate skins have different voice actors due to being different characters (Sam Wilson!Cap, Jane Foster!Thor, Spider-Gwen, etc.), some have different voice actors despite being the same character, including Spidey's alternate costumes being voiced by Christopher Daniel Barnes instead of Drake Bell, film!Rocket being voiced by Nolan North as opposed to Steve Blum, and TV!Jessica Jones being voiced by Tara Strong instead of Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. Additionally, when Black Cat and Iron Fist were moved from being a boss and an NPC respectively to playable characters, Black Cat was voiced by Jennifer Hale instead of Ali Hillis and Iron Fist by Johnny Yong Bosch instead of JP Karliak.
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Some actors stayed on from X-Men Legends, though by the second this became far less frequent and often actors were cast in new roles. By Ultimate Alliance 2, the only actors reprising roles from previous games were Steven Blum as Wolverine, John Kassir as Deadpool, April Stewart as Ms. Marvel, Dawnn Lewis as Storm, and John DiMaggio as Juggernaut. Fred Tatasciore reprised his role as Hulk from The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, replacing Peter Lurie from the previous game.
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: Because of the lengthy Sequel Gap, when the game was finally greenlit, most of the voice actors from the second game (and the remaining actors from the first game) were replaced with actors from Marvel's more recent animated and video game productions. The only exceptions were Steve Blum as Wolverine and Venom, Brian Bloom as Daredevil and Fred Tatasciore as the Hulk. Examples include:
- Brian Bloom replaces David Kaye as Captain America.
- Yuri Lowenthal replaces Ben Diskin as Spider-Man.
- Eric Loomis replaces Crispin Freeman as Iron Man.
- James C. Mathis III replaces Khary Payton as both Black Panther and Luke Cage.
- Rick D. Wasserman replaces Jim Cummings as Thor.
- Erica Lindbeck replaces April Stewart as Carol Danvers.
- Jason Spisak replaces Larry Cedar as Loki.
- Tom Kane replaces Phil Proctor as Magneto.
- Scott Porter replaces Zach Hanks as Cyclops.
- Mara Junot replaces Dawnn Lewis as Storm.
- Imari Williams replaces Khary Payton as Blade.
- John Eric Bentley replaces David Kaye as Nick Fury.
- Johnny Yong Bosch replaces Peter Dobson as Iron Fist.
- Nolan North replaces John Kassir as Deadpool.
- Steve Blum replaces Armin Shimerman as Green Goblin.
- Peter Lurie replaces John DiMaggio as the Juggernaut.
- Maurice LaMarche replaces Clive Revill as Doctor Doom.
- Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: Because of the lengthy Sequel Gap, when the game was finally greenlit, most of the voice actors from the second game (and the remaining actors from the first game) were replaced with actors from Marvel's more recent animated and video game productions. The only exceptions were Steve Blum as Wolverine and Venom, Brian Bloom as Daredevil and Fred Tatasciore as the Hulk. Examples include:
- Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Due to the obvious effects of a ten-year gap between it and the game before it, a vast majority of the characters ended up gaining new voices, the Marvel side using voice actors from recent animated works such as Hulk Vs., The Spectacular Spider-Man, Wolverine and the X-Men, Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes and The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. A few examples:
- Steve Blum replaces Cal Dodd as Wolverine.
- Brian Bloom replaces Cal Dodd as Captain America.
- Josh Keaton replaces Patrick Chilvers as Spider-Man.
- Eric Loomis replaces Chris Britton as Iron Man.
- Fred Tatasciore replaces Andrew Jackson as The Incredible Hulk.
- Susan Dalian replaces Catherine Disher as Storm.
- Tom Kane replaces Lorne Kennedy as Magneto.
- Likewise, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite sees several characters undergo this yet again, this time with many of the voice actors on Marvel's side coming from shows like Avengers Assemble, Guardians of the Galaxy (2015), and Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers. Examples include:
- Robbie Daymond replaces Josh Keaton as Spider-Man.
- Ashly Burch replaces Laura Bailey as Chun-Li. Interestingly, Bailey does still voice a playable character in the game: Black Widow.
- Travis Willingham replaces Rick D. Wasserman as Thor.
- Liam O'Brien replaces Rick Pasqualone as Doctor Strange.
- Trevor Devall replaces Greg Ellis as Rocket Raccoon.
- Phil LaMarr replaces Michael T. Weiss as Dormammu.
- Fred Tatasciore replaces Richard Grieco as Ghost Rider.
- Ben Diskin replaces Troy Baker as Nova.
- Isaac C. Singleton Jr. replaces Andrew Jackson as Thanos.
- Andrew Morgado replaces Rod Wilson as Venom.
- Mashin Hero Wataru received new voice actors in Super Robot Wars X; with the latter 2 due to the original passed away:
- EX-man [Red]: Yumiko Shibata to Keiko Nemoto
- Schwarvinegar: Shigezou Sasaoka to Ryūzaburō Ōtomo
- Don Goro: Kōji Totani to Takashi Matsuyama
- Mass Effect:
- The voice actor of Mordin Solus was changed from Michael Beattie in Mass Effect 2 to William Salyers in Mass Effect 3.
- In the Italian version of Mass Effect 2, male Sheppard is voiced by Giacomo Zito rather than Claudio Moneta, who voiced him in the first and third games. The fact is actually explained as an extra tidbit in the Italian version of the ending credits: Claudio Moneta was involved in a car accident when he already voiced 4/5 of the game, and rather than replacing him for the last part of the game they just redubbed all his lines from scratch. The dub also replaced Tali, Liara and Udina's voices, but Liara's voice from the first game came back for the third game.
- In the Polish dub of Mass Effect 2, Shepard's voice actors went from Marcin Dorociński and Magdalena Różczka to Łukasz Nowicki and Agnieszka Kunikowska.
- Max Payne: Although James McCaffrey voiced the character in all three games, series writer Sam Lake modelled for Max in the first game, was replaced by the irreconcilably different-looking Timothy Gibbs in the sequel owing to the project's bigger budget, and then in the third game Max is modeled after his actor. Lampshaded in one of the second game's fourth-wall-breaking dream sequences, when one of Max's doubles looks at himself and says "I've been switched! I didn't use to look like this!" Max was originally to have a different voice actor in the third game, due to the Time Skip. However, Rockstar Games bowed to fan outcry and cast McCaffrey again; it helps that, with the long period of development, McCaffrey had aged about the same rate Max had between the two games.
- Mega Man:
- Mega Man (Classic): Ignoring the various cartoons (from both sides of the pacific) based on the franchise, only three games in the series featured voice overs: Mega Man 8, Mega Man Powered Up and Mega Man 11, all recorded in three different studios. Thus, Mega Man has been voiced by Ruth Shiraishi in 8, Cole Howard in Powered Up, and Benjamin Diskin in 11. Roll was voiced (respectively) by Michelle Gazepis, Angie Beers, and Erica Lindbeck; Proto Man by Jack Evans (8) then Jonathan Love (Powered Up); Dr. Light by Darryl Stogre, Randall Wiebe, and Doug Stone; and Dr. Wily by Douglas Kendall, Dean Galloway, and Keith Silverstein. Doug Stone's foray as Dr. Light in 11 serves as a double example to boot, as Dr. Light's cameo appearance in the earlier-released Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (which only had English-language voiceovers) had him voiced by Michael Mislove instead.
- Mega Man Battle Network: MegaMan.EXE has had three voice actors total: Andrew Francis voiced him in the the anime, Jeffrey Watson (who voiced Axl in Mega Man X: Command Mission and X8) took over in 5: Double Team DS, and Gwendoline Yeo voiced him for his special participation in Onimusha Blade Warriors. Francis would once again reprise the role for the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.
- Mega Man Legends:
- Mega Man Volnutt's voice changed between the first and second games; from the then-child actor Corey Sevier in the first to Susan Roman in the second (in other words, they went from averting Crossdressing Voices to playing it straight). Seeing as how both games were recorded in the same studio (and the rest of the cast remained unchanged), it was probably due to Sevier reaching puberty between the two.
- Glyde had a voice change between The Misadventures of Tron Bonne and Mega Man Legends 2, going from Michael Daingerfield to Toby Proctor. Tron Bonne herself remained consistent throughout the PS1 games (being voiced by Caroly Larson), but was voiced by Tara Platt in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
- Mega Man X: The series has circulated through three studios, so:
- X was voiced by Ruth Shiraishi in Mega Man X4, Peter von Gomm in Mega Man X7, and Mark Gatha from Mega Man X: Command Mission to Maverick Hunter X. Additionally, Michael Donovan voiced him in the Ruby-Spears cartoon. In Japan, X was voiced by Megumi Ogata in the original game (the "Hadouken!" scream at least), Kentarō Itō in X4, Showtaro Morikubo from X5 to X7, and Takahiro Sakurai starting with Command Mission. In the Mega Man Zero games, X is instead voiced by Takahiro Mizushima.
- Zero was voiced by Wayne Doster in Mega Man X4, Jack Merluzzi in X7, and Lucas Gilbertson from Command Mission to Maverick Hunter X. Additionally, in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, he is instead voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, who also reprised the role in TEPPEN. In Japan, Zero was first voiced by Ryōtarō Okiayu in Mega Man X4 (who has remained his VA throughout the entire X series), but when the first Mega Man Zero was released, he was voiced by Yuuto Kazama.
- Sigma was voiced by Charlie Fontana in Mega Man X4, Walter Roberts in X7, Dave Pettitt in X8, and Gerald Matthews in Maverick Hunter X.
- The aforementioned switch in voice actors for Zero between series is an interesting case, as Capcom hires either one of these actors depending on which form of Zero is being used (Okiayu for X series Zero and Kazama for Zero as he appears in his own series) and they have always reprised their roles respectively. This includes crossovers, with Kazama voicing Zero in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos and Okiayu voicing him in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Project × Zone. While the Zero series version of X has yet to appear in any crossovers, the fact that PXZ and its sequel had Sakurai return to voice X indicates the same principle is in effect for X.
- Metal Gear Solid:
- In the GameCube remake, all the English voice actors from the original game reprised their roles with one notable exception: the voice of the Cyborg Ninja was changed from Greg Eagles, who was credited as George Byrd in the original, to Rob Paulsen. Eagles still reprised his other role as the DARPA Chief for the remake.
- In the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Ryōtarō Okiayu, the seiyu of Vamp from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, ended up being replaced by Shinya Tsukamoto, a film director.
- When Solid Snake and Roy Campbell appeared in Ape Escape 3, the localization staff were too lazy to track down David Hayter and Paul Eiding to reprise their role, so they got Peter Lurie, incidentally the voice of Vulcan Raven, and Michael McColl respectively.
- In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Raiden in the Secret Theater's Metal Gear Raiden: Snake Eraser was voiced by Charlie Schlatter, the same voice actor who voiced his Expy, Raikov.
- In Metal Gear Solid 3, EVA was voiced by Suzetta Miñet (although, given the reveal that she was actually an alias for another actress, exactly who played her is a subject of debate). However, in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, her voice actress was replaced with Vanessa Marshall for some reason (although to be fair, she never actually got any actual voiced scenes and at best did grunts), and in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, EVA was voiced by Suzetta Minet again.
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots:
- Liquid Ocelot's voice actor in the Japanese version was Banjo Ginga (the voice of Liquid Snake), not because of the fact that he was possessed by Liquid (hint, he was faking all along), but because Revolver Ocelot's original Japanese voice (Kōji Totani) died before Metal Gear Solid 4 began production.
- The English dubs have had three different voice actors for Ocelot in three different periods of the character's life — in his 60s during Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 4, he's Patric Zimmerman; in his 20s during Metal Gear Solid 3 and Portable Ops, he's Josh Keaton; and then in his 40s for The Phantom Pain, he's Troy Baker.
- Master Miller was originally voiced by Cam Clarke, but the role was recast to Robin Atkin Downes for Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. This could be forgiven, though, since it was a thirty-years-younger Miller and Miller died before the events of Metal Gear Solid, with Liquid Snake, also voiced by Clarke, assuming his identity.
- The Substance re-release of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty includes a VR mission where you fight Meryl. For this fight, however, rather than recording new lines, they reused voice clips from Olga Gurlukovich's fight early in the main game. This would have made sense in the Japanese version, as the two characters share the same seiyuu (Kyoko Terase), but every Japanese version of Substance, up until the HD Edition nearly a decade later, just used the English voice acting.
- Same for Rosemary's voiceovers in the above "Snake Eraser" short in MGS3, where her lines are all done by the same actor as The Boss — it works in the original because both characters are voiced by Kikuko Inoue, whereas in English it went from Lara Cody to Lori Alan. The Digital Graphic Novel version of MGS2 replaced Rose's voice again, this time with Kari Wahlgren.
- In Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Kiefer Sutherland takes over David Hayter's role as Big Boss. Appropriately enough, this Big Boss is a body double of the original, though the real Big Boss is also voiced by Sutherland, playing the trope straight.
- Video game versions of Mobile Suit Gundam in America tend to go through Other Darrin moments.
- Any game that used Heero Yuy (Mark Hildreth, who came to absolutely hate the character due to how he was treated by "fans" during recording of the series) and Domon Kasshu (Mark Gatha, who retired from voice acting in 2006 to become an orthopedic surgeon).
- A noticeable change was in Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space, which had replaced the voices of everyone from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory both in game and the 0083 cutscenes. This was because 0080 and 0083 were dubbed by Bang-Zoom and the game was using Ocean Group.
- Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam makes this noticeable in a particularly weird way in its English version. In the game, there's a mission mode where, if you play your cards right, you can initiate a What If? story in which the original Mobile Suit Gundam's One-Year War is fought with characters and technology from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Thing is, Gundam was dubbed by Ocean Group, while Zeta was dubbed by Bluewater, and the game goes out of its way to use the appropriate voice clips for characters depending on the setting (e.g. Amuro talking in Brad Swaile's voice in OYW-set fights and in Matthew Erickson's for Zeta-set ones), so characters who showed up in both series will randomly change voices depending on what happens in that story mode (such as Amuro talking in Erickson's voice for story dialogue, then butting in with Swaile's voice to shout about Char).
- Monkey Island:
- This has occurred with at least 3 characters. Most notably, the character of Elaine Marley. In Escape from Monkey Island, she not only has a completely different voice actress, but she has also inexplicably dropped her British accent from the previous game. Oddly enough, she has both her original voice actress and her accent back again in Tales of Monkey Island.
- In the first chapter of Tales of Monkey Island, LeChuck was voiced by skilled VG voice actor Adam Harrington instead of Earl Boen, who had been voicing the character for years prior, though they managed to get Boen back for chapters 4 and 5.
- LeChuck's long-time voice actor Earl Boen had retired before the production of Return to Monkey Island necessitating the casting of Jess Harnell in the role.
- Stan S. Stanman has had multiple voice actors: Patrick Pinney in The Curse of Monkey Island and the special editions of The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Pat Fraley in Escape from Monkey Island, Gavin Hammond in Tales of Monkey Island and Return to Monkey Island.
- Mortal Kombat: Midway replaced half of the digitized actors from the first two games in Mortal Kombat 3. The only ones who returned were Tony Marquez (Kung Lao), Richard Divizio (Kano, Baraka and Kabal), John Parrish (Jax) and Brian Glynn (Shao Kahn).
- Eddie Wong replaced Ho Sung Pak as Liu Kang.
- Kerri Hoskins replaced Elizabeth Malecki as Sonya Blade.
- John Turk replaced Phillip Ahn as Shang Tsung and Daniel Pesina as Sub-Zero. Turk would go on to play all of the masked ninjas in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as well.
- In Ultimate, Becky Gable was brought in to replace Katalin Zamiar as the female ninjas (Kitana, Mileena and Jade).
- Johnny Cage would be the last character whose actor was replaced. Originally, Midway was planning to leave him out of Mortal Kombat Trilogy due to the Creator Backlash that resulted when Dan Pesina posed in character as Cage for an ad for BloodStorm. But then they decided to bring Cage back by replacing Pesina with Chris Alexander.
- On the voice-acting side of the coin, series creator Ed Boon provided the voice of Scorpion for the series up through Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Starting with Mortal Kombat 9, the role was passed on to Patrick Seitz, although Boon still provides the voice-work for Scorpion's iconic "GET OVER HERE!" Seitz would later be replaced by Ron Yuan in Mortal Kombat 11.
- Mortal Kombat 11 sees many of the returning characters were recast in this game:
- Patrick Seitz revealed on Twitter that he's not voicing Scorpion this time. It's been confirmed that Ron Yuan has taken over his role.
- Sonya Blade went from Tricia Helfer to Ronda Rousey.
- Cassie Cage went from Ashly Burch to Erica Lindbeck.
- Steve Blum replaces Greg Eagles as Baraka. The voice he uses sounds very similar to his portrayal of Reptile. His voice was later altered to sound deeper/more guttural for the final version.
- Beata Pozniak replaces Dana Lyn Baron as Skarlet.
- Sunil Malhotra replaces Will Yun Lee as Kung Lao.
- Jonathan Cahill takes over for David Lodge as Kabal.
- Linda Lee has been replaced as Jade here by Mela Lee (no relation).
- Kano isn't voiced by Michael McConnohie this time, but by JB Blanc.
- Megalyn Echikunwoke replaces Danielle Nicolet as Jacqui Briggs.
- Noob Saibot went from Jamieson Price to Sean Chiplock despite the former reprising his role as the announcer.
- Jax isn't being voiced by Greg Eagles again, the role being taken over by William Stephens.
- Matthew Yang King replaces Tom Choi as Liu Kang.
- Karen Strassman indicated she did not voice Kitana again prior to release. The role instead went to Kari Wahlgren. Wahlgren also replaced Strassman as Mileena.
- Shao Kahn isn't voiced by Bob Carter, but by Ike Amadi instead. He also took over Cyrax, replacing Rhasaan Orange.
- Frost is now voiced by Sara Cravens despite Kelly Hu returning as D’Vorah.
- Vanessa Marshall takes over Sheeva from Lani Minella.
- Dave B. Mitchell now voices Sektor, replacing Andrew Kishino and Vic Chao.
- Daniel Lujan replaces Larry Omaha as Nightwolf.
- Chris Cox voices the Terminator instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger, despite Schwarzenegger's likeness being used.
- While most of the cast for Mortal Kombat 11 does come back for Mortal Kombat Onslaught, there are some exceptions.
- In addition to returning to Sheeva, Vanessa Marshall replaces Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade.
- Travis Willingham replaces Richard Epcar as Raiden.
- Mortal Kombat 1 brings back many of the actors from the previous two games, but, due to being a Continuity Reboot that heavily reimagines certain characters, also features a number of recasts:
- Vincent Rodriguez III takes over the role of Raiden from Richard Epcar and Travis Willingham. This only applies to the mortal Raiden; the Thunder God incarnation from an alternate timeline is again voiced by Willingham.
- Kaiji Tang takes over as the voice of Bi-Han/Sub-Zero I, replacing Jamieson Price and Sean Chiplock.
- Kuai Liang/Sub-Zero II (now known as Scorpion in the new timeline) is now voiced by Daisuke Tsuji, replacing Steve Blum.
- Kelly Hu replaces Tara Strong as Li Mei.
- Alan Lee replaces Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Shang Tsung.
- Cherise Boothe replaces Jennifer Hale as Tanya.
- Phil LaMarr replaces Dave B. Mitchell as Geras.
- Yuri Lowenthal replaces Andrew Bowen and Ken Lally as Smoke.
- Andrew Morgado replaces Steve Blum as Reptile.
- Noshir Dalal replaces Dempsey Pappion as Rain.
- Sean T. Krishnan replaces Ronald M. Banks as Quan Chi.
- MultiVersus:
- Steven Universe is voiced by Daniel DiVenere instead of Zach Callison, as Zach took a break from the media industry for his mental health.
- Tom and Jerry are voiced by Eric Bauza, rather than archival recordings of William Hanna or Frank Welker used in modern works like The Tom and Jerry Show (2014). Bauza also replaces Jeff Bergman as Bugs Bunny, reprising his role from Looney Tunes Cartoons.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Resident Token Evil Teammate Bishop was voiced by Asa Siegel in the first campaign. He, or rather his Wall of the Faithless-absorbed-soul, reappears in a Dream Sequence in Mask of the Betrayer voiced by Dave Walsh.
- From the English dub of the Neptunia series:
- 5pb. is voiced by Mela Lee in the first game, and by Julie Ann Taylor in mk2, it's remake ReBirth2, and Re;Birth3.
- Vert was originally voiced by Tara Platt in everything from the start of the series up to 2015 (that's 9 games and the anime), but starting with Megadimension Neptunia VII, she is voiced by Carrie Keranen, who also voices Rom and RED, due to Tara being unavailable at those time in response to a tweet from a fan. Keranen would eventually voice Vert in all of her subsequent appearances.
- Noire was voiced by Erin Fitzgerald throughout the entire series until 2016. At Anime Expo'17, an English trailer for Cyberdimension Neptunia: 4 Goddesses Online was showcased. During the showcase, a fan noticed and tweeted that Noire is voiced by a different person. Erin responded to the tweet by confirming that she is no longer voicing Noire as she stands on getting all games with SAG contracts. The voice actress replacing her is Erica Mendez, who voiced Moru and Blossom Aisen in Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart. While the strike had ended on September 23, 2017 and Fitzgerald did express the idea of wanting to reprise the role of Noire, the switch ended up being permanent as Mendez would voice the character in all future installments note .
- When Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl had voice acting added in June 2022, most of the characters' previous actors reprised their roles, while others had stand-ins:
- David Kaye voices Powdered Toast Man instead of the late Gary Owens.
- Alex Cazares voices Oblina instead of the late Christine Cavanaugh.
- Jim Meskimen voices Nigel Thornberry instead of Tim Curry.
- Dustin Sardella voices Aang instead of Zach Tyler Eisen.
- Vivian Vencer voices Toph instead of Jessie Flower.
- Abby Trott voices April O'Neil instead of Renae Jacobs.
- Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3, in addition to bringing over Kaye, Cazares, Vencer, & Trott, has the following replacements:
- Aang has another new voice, Davis Pak, instead of Dustin Sardella.
- Vincent Tong voices Zuko instead of Dante Basco.
- Jessica DiCicco voices Chuckie Finster instead of Nancy Cartwright.
- Zane VanWicklyn & Ramone Hamilton voice Arnold & Gerald instead of Mason Vale Cotton & Benjamin Flores Jr. from Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie. VanWicklyn reprises his role as Arnold from Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis.
P to R
- Wolf's voice actor in PAYDAY 3 has been replaced due to his original voice actor in the first two games being unavailable to take on the role. Some of Wolf's voice lines in PAYDAY 2 had also been spliced together from other lines as a result of this, this being most notable when marking a Medic special enemy as it was added late in that game's development.
- Perfect Dark: Joanna Dark's voice actress switched from Eveline Fischer in the original, to Laurence Bouvard in the prequel, also contributing to the loss of her accent (The former actress is British, the latter is American). Daniel Carrington's voice likewise switched from Chris Sutherland in the original to John Kay Steel; conversely to the above, this voice switch contributed to Carrington becoming 200% more Scottish than he was originally.
- Persona:
- Following her recast in the anime adaptation and starting with Persona 4: Arena and Persona 4 Golden, Erin Fitzgerald voices Chie Satonaka in place of Tracey Rooney, the latter played her in the original English dub of Persona 4. Sam Riegel also took over for Dave Wittenberg's Teddie after the same anime adaptation.
- Fuuka Yamagishi was voiced by an unknown English voice actress in Persona 3, but was replaced with Wendee Lee for Arena and Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth.
- In the second half of Persona 4: The Animation, Kanji Tatsumi's English lines are done by Matthew Mercer, since Troy Baker was on honeymoon. Baker reprised the role for Golden and Arena, but starting with Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth and Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, Mercer was chosen to reprise as Kanji instead, as Baker had become a unionized voice actor (Wittenberg did not return to play Teddie for the same reason).
- Naoto was voiced by Anna Graves in 4, Golden, and the first Arena; it was changed to Mary Elizabeth McGlynn for the anime. Starting with Ultimax and Persona Q, it changed again to Valerie Arem.
- Due to scheduling conflicts, Ashly Burch took over as Rise in Persona 4: Dancing All Night for Laura Bailey. By this point, the entire Investigation Team has been Darrin'd with three exceptions: Johnny Yong Bosch (Yu), Yuri Lowenthal (Yosuke), and Amanda Winn-Lee (Yukiko) are the only returning voices for the Investigation Team from the original game's English dub.
- In Persona 3's original English dub, Ken Amada was voiced by an unknown voice actor; for Persona 4: Arena Ultimax and Q, he is instead played by Cindy Robinson, who also voiced Labrys from the Arena games. Also changed for Ultimax and Q were Margaret (Marisha Ray replacing Michelle Ann Dunphy, the latter being unavailable to record) and Theodore (while Travis Willingham would reprise as Theodore for Ultimax, Bryce Papenbrook replaced him in Q).
- The very first Persona had a revolving door of actors for the Japanese version, with most of the characters having two to three VAs apiece: one for the game, and two different actors for two different CD dramas. The main protagonist, for example, actually had Akira Ishida (the VA for Persona 3's protagonist) as his VA for the first CD drama, but had two different ones for the second and for the game itself.
- Igor, the mysterious proprietor of the Velvet Room, had a reduced presence in the Persona 3 and 4 spin-offs due to Isamu Tanonaka's passing in 2010. As a result, Igor was played using Tanonaka's archived recordings of the character, with the Velvet Siblings taking up most of his role instead. They finally got a replacement voice actor, Masane Tsukayama, just in time for Persona 5. This is actually a plot point. Tsukayama actually voices Yaldabaoth posing as Igor, and this trope is invoked by the game to draw away suspicion from him. The real Igor still uses recycled lines. In the English version, Dan Woren is replaced by David Lodge. Double subverted when it turns out Lodge's Igor is an impostor, but the real Igor is voiced by a third guy, Kirk Thornton.
- Persona 5 Royal:
- Miyu Matsuki, Chihaya Mifune's original seiyuu, died before the original version was released, and Kazunari Tanaka, Junya Kaneshiro's original seiyuu, died shortly after. Due to new dialogue in Royal, they were replaced with Haruka Terui and Takahiro Fujimoto respectively, who had voiced these characters in Persona 5: The Animation.
- Kirsten Potter was reportedly unable to reprise her role as Tae Takemi as a result of moving away, and was replaced by Abby Trott.
- Persona 5: The Phantom X: This is the first game to have a brand-new Japanese voice for Igor since Isamu Tanonaka's passing, being voiced by Hōchū Ōtsuka.
- Persona 3 Reload, a remake of Persona 3, recasted a lot of characters for the English dub, in contrast to most of the original Japanese cast reprising their roles:
- The male protagonist is voiced by Aleks Le instead of Yuri Lowenthal.
- Yukari Takeba is voiced by Heather Gonzalez instead of Michelle Ruff.
- Junpei Iori is voiced by Zeno Robinson instead of Vic Mignogna note .
- Akihiko Sanada is voiced by Alejandro Saab instead of Liam O'Brien.
- Mitsuru Kirijo is voiced by Allegra Clark instead of Tara Platt; the latter still voices Elizabeth, however.
- Fuuka Yamagishi is voiced by Suzie Yeung instead of Wendee Lee; the latter had voiced Fuuka in numerous spinoffs beforehand.
- Aigis is voiced by Dawn M. Bennett instead of Karen Strassman.
- Ken Amada is voiced by Justine Lee instead of Cindy Robinson; the latter had voiced Ken in numerous spinoffs beforehand.
- Shinjiro Aragaki is voiced by Justice Slocum instead of Grant George.
- Takaya Sakaki is voiced by Daman Mills instead of Derek Stephen Prince.
- Jin Shirato goes from being voiced by Grant George to Chris Hackney.
- Chidori Yoshino is now voiced by Merit Leighton in Reload; Chidori's original actor was uncredited.
- Shuji Ikutsuki is now voiced by Jake Green, instead of his previous actors Dan Woren (the original Persona 3 releases) and JB Blanc (Persona 4: Arena Ultimax).
- In the Japan-only Drama CDs and the movie adaptations, Hidetoshi Odagiri was played by Hiroaki Miura, with Masaya Matsukaze playing him for Reload.
- Chihiro Fushimi has a new voice actor in both the Japanese and English dubs of Reload. In Japanese, she was previously portrayed by Ai Maeda for her cameo in Persona 4 and in the Persona 3 movies, with Aya Endo playing her in Reload. She was played by Wendee Lee in Persona 4's English dub (in Episode 15 of the anime adaptation, Cassandra Lee Morris plays Fushimi instead). Reload has her played by Kelly Baskin instead of either actor in the dub.
- Kenji Tomochika was originally played by Kenji Nojima in both the Japan-only Drama CDs and the movies. In Reload, he is played by Wataru Hatano.
- Isako Toriumi was played by Valerie Arem in the original Persona 3 releases. She is played by Katelyn Gault in Reload.
- In the Japan-only Drama CDs, Bunkichi and Mitsuko Kitamura were played by Koji Yada and Fumi Oda respectively. In Reload's Japanese dub, they are played by Naoki Tatsuta and Sanae Takagi respectively.
- Maiko Ootashi was played by Fumiko Orikasa in the Drama CDs, while Hiyori Kouno plays her in Reload.
- Mr. Edogawa is played by Xander Mobus in Reload instead of Dan Woren, the latter playing the teacher in the English dub of Persona 4: The Animation.
- Persona 3 Reload has a brand-new voice actor for Igor, Bin Shimada. This is also a different actor than the one used in Persona 5: The Phantom X, Hōchū Ōtsuka. In the English dub, Kirk Thornton (reprising from Persona 5) replaces both Dan Woren (original Persona 3 release) and Vic Mignogna (Persona 4: Arena Ultimax) as Igor's dub actor for Reload.
- Officer Kurosawa was previously played by Grant George in the original game and reprised the role for Ultimax. In Reload, he is played by Liam O'Brien.
- Eiichiro Takeba was originally played Liam O'Brien, with Yuri Lowenthal playing him instead for Reload.
- Derek Stephen Prince originally played Takeharu Kirijo, while Grant George plays him in Reload.
- Pokémon Black 2 and White 2:
- In the Japanese version of Pokémon the Series: Black & White, Bianca is voiced by Shizuka Itō; in the trailer for the game, however, she is voiced by Ayana Taketatsu. This also happened in English: Bianca is voiced in the anime by Erica Schroeder (Bella Hudson), but in the trailer by Eileen Stevens. It's most likely because the aforementioned trailer and anime series are created by separate teams.
- Same for the Italian version: Anime!Bianca is Benedetta Ponticelli, Trailer!Bianca is Sabrina Bonfitto.
- Postal:
- The title character of the Postal Dude has been more or less consistently voiced by Rick Hunter in every game, with two exceptions due to Rick Hunter being unavailable:
- Hunter was dealing with personal issues during Postal III's development, so the role went to Corey Cruise. Interestingly, both actors returned for the Postal 2 DLC Paradise Lost (which was released after III), where Hunter regularly voices the Dude and Cruise acts as a split personality who suggests the Dude towards violence, occasionally takes over to threaten it, and eventually splits off into his own Dude.
- For Postal 4: No Regerts, Hunter was once again unavailable due to existing work commitments, so Jon St. John takes over as the Dude.
- Prince of Persia:
- In the Sands of Time series, the Prince's voice actor went from Yuri Lowenthal in the first game, to Robin Atkin Downes in Warrior Within, then back to Lowenthal for The Two Thrones, but with a slightly different voice and accent. Other characters' voices/accents (Farah and the Vizier) also changed between the games, and Kaileena's voice was not just changed between games, but changed during the game in Warrior Within.
- Interesting international tidbit: the voice actor for the Spanish voice track was changed between Sands and Warrior, and the one from Warrior remained for Two Thrones. But what's interesting is that the first voice actor sounds younger and more arrogant, while the second voice actor sounds grimmer and older... which fits perfectly with the timeline of the game, since Warrior happens after a noticeable Time Skip, while Two Thrones is immediately after Warrior.
- Between [PROTOTYPE] and [PROTOTYPE 2], Alex Mercer's voice actor went from Barry Pepper to Darryl Kurylo.
- Ratchet & Clank:
- Ratchet was played by Mikey Kelley in the first Ratchet & Clank, and James Arnold Taylor for the rest of the series, which most fans of the series actually prefer anyway, as right when Taylor took over the developers toned down his attitude and laziness and made him far more willing to do the right thing and heroic.
- Talwyn Apogee was originally voiced by Tara Strong, but as of Into the Nexus, she is now voiced by Ali Hillis.
- Rainbow Six:
- Between Vegas 1 and 2, every voice actor except for Jung Park's was replacednote . Michael Walters is the only other returning character who really sounds anything like he originally did, by way of having the only new actor who bothered retaining the character's distinctive accent - most notably, Logan Keller's Texan accent in the first game disappears entirely in the day or so between its missions and the final one of the second.
- An example between mediums came about from the beginning of the series, where John Clark was played by Willem Dafoe in the 1994 film version of Clear and Present Danger, but then for the Rainbow Six games, from the original through Raven Shield and its expansions and console ports, he's voiced by Douglas Rye. For Lockdown he was replaced by Jamieson Price, who was in turn replaced again for his brief speaking-only role in the prologue to Vegas 2.
- Resident Evil: Any character that has been in more than one game will likely have a different voice actor per game due to Capcom's habit of changing casting agencies.
- The most notable example of this was Claire Redfield, who had been voiced by Alyson Court from her debut in Resident Evil 2 (early 1998) through Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (early 2012), before being replaced by Danielle Nicolet (under the pseudonym "James Baker") in Resident Evil: Revelations 2 and then Stephanie Panisello in Resident Evil 2 (Remake). Court was nearly going to be replaced a lot earlier for Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. When Capcom considered using a local talent agency from Japan for the game, the Canadian studio that provided the voice acting for RE2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis successfully lobbied for her return.
- Some characters have switched back and forth. Richard Waugh voiced Wesker in Code: Veronica, but was replaceqd by Peter Jessop in the GameCube version of the first game, only to return in 0 and 4, then he was replaced by D.C. Douglas in 5 and The Umbrella Chronicles.
- Sally Cahill, who voiced Ada Wong in Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 4, was replaced by Megan Hollingshead in The Umbrella Chronicles, but returned to voice Ada in The Darkside Chronicles, and was then replaced again by Courtenay Taylor for Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 6. Most of the regular VAs from the time of 4 onward (including the aforementioned people) also reprised their roles in The Darkside Chronicles, although most of characters from the games before 4 were given new voice actors.
- Leon S. Kennedy has also been a notable partial aversion. He had been consistently voiced by Paul Mercier in all of his appearances after his debut in Resident Evil 2, where he was voiced by Paul Haddad. Then Christian Lanz took over for Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, only to be immediately replaced by Matthew Mercer in Resident Evil: Damnation and Resident Evil 6.
- So far, Jill Valentine has been voiced by 8 English voice actresses since 1996, more than any other character in the series. First, Una Kavanagh voiced her in the first Resident Evil game, then Catherine Disher took over the role in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis and Marvel vs. Capcom 2, then Heidi Anderson voiced her in the Nintendo GameCube REmake of the original Resident Evil, then the Japan-only PACHI-SLOT Biohazard pachinko game used Tara Platt, then it was Patricia Ja Lee's turn in The Umbrella Chronicles, Resident Evil 5, and Mercenaries 3D, then Kari Wahlgren shows up for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, then Michelle Ruff voiced her in Revelations and Operation Raccoon City, and then, finally (for now), Nicole Tompkins took over for the 2020 remake of RE3.
- Chris Redfield has been somewhat better in this regard, having four different actors between the original game (Scott McCulloch), Code Veronica (Michael Filipowich), the REmake (Joe Whyte), and The Umbrella Chronicles (supposedly Kevin Dorman), but ever since RE5 he has been consistently voiced by Roger Craig Smith. During his cameo appearance at the end of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Smith was darrin'd with David Vaughn assuming the role, which continues on into the Not a Hero DLC where Chris returns as a playable character.
- Richard in the Nintendo DS version of the first game was voiced by a different voice actor soley because in the Rebirth mode, he had one brand new line of dialogue to give the player a hint about a secret ammo stash in the dining room. Likewise, Chris and Jill were given new voice actors purely for the one liners the characters gave in Rebirth mode when solving or failing certain puzzles and they still kept the original voice recordings for the rest of the game.
- Rugrats: Royal Ransom features Candi Milo voicing Chuckie Finster instead of Nancy Cartwright (who herself had replaced Christine Cavanaugh after the latter retired from voicing acting the previous year).
S to U
- Saints Row:
- Somewhat present with the character creator system - players can choose from multiple different voices, which are made to fit different nationalities. The problem is that some of the nationalities change in almost every game. This is a problem because the player character is always the same one, meaning that the character's nationality might change from game to game. In addition, between Saints Row 2 and The Third, almost all of the voices changed, with only Kenn Michael hanging on as an option for male voices. Between the Third and IV, the voices remained consistent with the exception of the gimmick voice, changing from Steve Blum as a zombie to Nolan North as Nolan North.
- In Saints Row: The Third, Shaundi is voiced by Danielle Nicolet rather than Eliza Dushku from her Saints Row 2 rendition. While the 2 version of Shaundi reappears in Saints Row IV, she is voiced by Jennifer Jules Hart rather than Dushku.
- Saints Row IV features many characters returning from the earlier games in the series, either as simulations or their real selves. However, while many stayed, many underwent voice changes.
- Benjamin King was voiced by the late Michael Clarke Duncan. Although Duncan was rescheduled to appear in the game, he died during production, so Terry Crews replaced him.
- Tanya Winters was voiced by Mila Kunis in her original appearance. Here, Kunis is replaced by Ursula Taheriane.
- Mr. Sunshine's voice went from Phil LaMarr to Phil Morris.
- Phillipe Loren is voiced by JB Blanc rather than game designer Jacques Hennequet.
- While William Sharp was cut from the final, unused voice lines of his still exist within the games files. However, his voice is drastically different and went uncredited in the games files. Justified in the sense that David Carradine, Sharp's original voice actor, had passed away in 2009.
- A strange case with Cyrus Temple, who is voiced by Tim Thomerson in nearly all of his appearances in the game bar the first mission, where Richard Epcar voices him instead.
- Max in Sam & Max Save the World had his voice replaced after the first episode, though the voices are so similar it's not really that important - some of the original actor's voice clips have even been retained.
- The 2019 Samurai Shodown reboot recast many of the major roles due to being the franchise's first new mainline entry in a decade.
- In Koei's Samurai Warriors, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's American voice actor portrayed him with a screeching, annoying voice. In Samurai Warriors 2, with Hideyoshi's role in the story expanded, he was assigned a much better actor who was able to convey a great deal of depth and humor, making him much more tolerable. And then when Warriors Orochi hit, they went back to his old voice actor.
- Sega Superstars:
- Beat from Jet Set Radio does not have any of his original voice actors. Instead, he has a voice that sounds like a 12-year-old boy. Eeven in All-Stars Racing, in which he appears in his Future incarnation, who is older, but yet he still sounds like he's 12.
- Guest character Wreck-It Ralph has a replacement VA in All-Stars Racing Transformed, because it would've cost too much to get John C. Reilly (most game developers not published by EA or Activision can't afford big-name actors).
- Shadowverse: The English dub for chapters 9-11 in the Story Mode of drastically changed the voice actresses for Arisa. In the Tempest of the Gods expansion, many cards ended up having new voice actors.
- Skullgirls: Subverted In-Universe. Annie of the Stars is a Show Within a Show featuring a magical girl saving the day against Skullgirls and other threats that has run long enough that the first actress to play Annie is now the show's producer. Unknown to the public at large is that there has actually only ever been one person playing Annie: Annie herself, made The Ageless due to a wish on the Skull Heart made by her own mother. The girls credited for playing Annie are actually life doubles who pose as Annie off-set and act as Annie's Secret Keepers so her being centuries old doesn't get out.
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- In an extreme case, the entire English voice cast were replaced with the cast used for the anime Sonic X. The original cast didn't even know they were being replaced until after the change. This came about because Yuji Naka, who was the head of Sonic Team at the time, made a comment that he would like for the voices for the characters to remain consistent across all media (as it was in Japan), either not knowing or caring that following through with this meant firing the previous English cast.
- Vector the Crocodile was voiced by Carter Cathcart in Sonic X and Shadow the Hedgehog, but Dan Green in Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games onward, while Omega went from Jeff Kramer (Shadow the Hedgehog) to Maddie Blaustein (Sonic 2006).
- Sega replaced the entire voice cast (except Mike Pollock) again in 2010. The new cast's first appearance was in Sonic Free Riders.
- Before the big cast change, Tails went through several voice actors that were actual children (3 in English and 2 in Japanese), while Knuckles was voiced by Michael McGaharn in Sonic Adventure, Ryan Drummond (who also voiced Sonic) in Sonic Shuffle, and Scott Drier from Adventure 2 to Heroes.
- Ultimately, if you count the short voice clips in Sonic CD, you would find that Sega has gone through 5 voice actors for Sonic. That's a lot compared to others.
- Before Sonic CD, Sonic had been voiced by Takeshi Kusao in a handful of arcade games, including SegaSonic the Hedgehog.
- In Japan, Big the Cat was voiced by the late Shun Yashiro in Sonic Adventure and Takashi Nagasako everywhere else.
- Likewise, Dr. Eggman was voiced by the late Chikao Ohtsuka from Sonic Adventure up until his death in 2015, where he was replaced by Kotaro Nakamura the following year.
- Not counting the cartoons, the first time Sonic got a dub in Italian was in Sonic Generations. While most of the cast remained from that game on, there are a few exceptions:
- In Generations, Shadow was voiced by Maurizio Merluzzo (who also voices Knuckles) during his rival battle and by Riccardo Lombardo for the remainder of the game. In subsequent games, Claudio Moneta voiced the character, except in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U where Riccardo Lombardo took the role back.
- In Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games, Alice Bongiorni (who regularly voices Omochao) replaces both Sabrina Bonfitto as Cream and Emanuela Pacotto as Charmy, and Claudio Moneta replaces Silvio Pandolfi as Espio.
- And then Troy Baker's role as Espio was replaced by Matthew Mercer in Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
- Team Sonic Racing saw Dave B. Mitchell and Patrick Seitz replace Travis Willingham as Knuckles and Zavok (respectively), Erica Lindbeck replace Laura Bailey as Blaze and Omochao (many fans believe Laura was out on maternity leave and Travis was with her for it), Aaron LaPlante replacing Vic Mignogna as E-123 Omega (due to the allegations surrounding him at the time) and Bryce Papenbrook replacing Quinton Flynn as Silver.
- The Soul Series has had its own run-in with the trope in the English version. In the jump from Soul Calibur II to Soul Calibur III, every character who had been in the series up to that point and had a voice actor got a new VA, with the exception being Xianghua, who kept Wendee Lee as her voice actress for the entire series. However, there have been even more changes for a few other characters, with little to no explanation for the change:
- Tira's voice actress for her debut in SCIII is unknown, but Katie McNulty is known to have voiced her in every game since.
- Setsuka was voiced by Kari Wahlgren originally, only for Tara Platt to take over in the subsequent games.
- Nightmare (Inferno) already had a different voice from Knightmare (Siegfried) but this is justified by the fact that they are technically different characters. However, he changed voice actors between III and IV from Patrick Ryan to Michael McConnohie, also justifiable due to the fact that this version of Knightmare physically changed between the two games and the voice change was one way to reflect this.
- Cervantes got it worse than the rest of the cast; he was originally voiced by Warren Rodgerson in Soul Calibur II (who gave quite the hammy performance), but was replaced by Wally Wingert starting in III. He was then replaced in Soulcalibur V by Patrick Seitz, justified by the fact that Cervantes actually gained a new body in V.
- Nightmare (Siegfried) was originally voiced by Ted D' Agostino. When Siegfried became his own character in III, he was voiced by Crispin Freeman due to the change in his character. However, Freeman was replaced by Roger Craig Smith, who continued to voice the character from IV onward.
- Space Channel 5:
- In Space Channel 5 Part 2, Ulala was the only major returning character to keep the same (English) voice actor (besides Space Michael).
- Apollo Smile, Ulala's long-time voice actress, retired several years before Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash came out, so Ulala is now voiced by Cherami Leigh.
- Splinter Cell: Don Jordan, who played Irving Lambert in the first game, was inexplicably replaced by Dennis Haysbert for Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and then just as inexplicably returned for the rest of the series. Anna Grimsdóttir was in the same boat - first voiced by Claudia Besso, replaced by Adriana Anderson for Pandora Tomorrow (who also replaced Ellen David as Frances Coen), then back to Besso for Chaos Theory and Conviction. In Blacklist, Grim's voice was replaced again, by Kate Drummond, as was Sam's, going from Michael Ironside to Eric Johnson for that game; mirroring the Pandora Tomorrow instance, however, Ironside came back to voice him for crossover missions in Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint. It was later revealed that Ironside stepped down from the role for Blacklist both because of the greater physical demands from doing motion capture alongside voice acting (Ironside was 63 at the time the game released) and, as it turns out, he was undergoing treatment for cancer.
- Spyro the Dragon:
- Spyro himself has had many different voice actors: Carlos Alazraqui in the first game, Tom Kenny in the second through fourth games, Jess Harnell in the fifth and sixth games, and Elijah Wood in the sixth, seventh and eighth games.
- In the Skylanders series, Josh Keaton voiced Spyro in the first through fifth games while Matthew Mercer voiced him for the first and only time in the final game, Skylanders: Imaginators.
- Sparx's voice changes in each game, from André Sogliuzzo to David Spade to Billy West to Wayne Brady. In Dawn of the Dragon, when voiced by Wayne Brady, he tells Spyro that "[his] voice keeps changing" when Spyro asks how he feels.
- Cynder also got different actresses for each Legend of Spyro game. First was Cree Summer, who made "possessed" Cynder sound menacing. Next was Mae Whitman, who sounded suspiciously older (despite Cynder being returned to normal - the same age as young Spyro). Last was Christina Ricci, who was higher-pitched and added Chickification to Cynder.
- While the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy notably brought back none of the original actors, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is taking efforts to minimize this, with Tom Kenny returning as Spyro being one of the first announcements, albeit still replacing Alazraqui for the first game. Gregg Berger, the original voice for Hunter and Ripto, was also confirmed to return not long after—though he only returned as Ripto, with Robbie Daymond voicing Hunter. Additionally, Cassandra Lee Morris replaces Melissa Disney as Elora, and Melissa Hutchison replaces Pamela Hayden as Bianca.
- StarCraft II has several significant examples:
- Sarah Kerrigan, the penultimate Big Bad from the first StarCraft, is now voiced by Tricia Helfer for the sequel trilogy. Notably, a flashback cinematic in the Wings of Liberty campaign, which featured Kerrigan's lines from the first StarCraft Terran campaign by her original voice actress Glynnis Talken-Campbell, were entirely redubbed by Helfer. Fred Tatasciore has taken over the role for Zeratul, as the original voice actor Jack Ritschel had passed away sometime before the production of Starcraft II. Patrick Seitz is the voice actor for Artanis in StarCraft II. All in all, only the voice actors for Jim Raynor and Arcturus Mengsk got to keep their roles from the original installment.
- Jim Raynor had a different voice actor complete with a very pronounced Southern accent in the initial gameplay trailers released for StarCraft II. Interestingly, Blizzard eventually changed their minds and brought back the original voice actor, Robert Clatworthy. But in a bizarre twist, Talken-Campbell initially confirmed that she was supposed to play Kerrigan in StarCraft II all along, and a released trailer showcasing storyboard sketches for the flashback cinematic actually featured her voice (and the redubbed lines for Jim Raynor complete with the Southern twang). Sometime after Clatworthy announced his reinstatement as the voice of Jim Raynor, Talken-Campbell took to the internet and announced that Blizzard decided to replace her as the voice for Sarah Kerrigan. Subsequent fan backlash never swayed the developers to reconsider their decision.
- The trilogy manages to provide an interesting subversion that is only revealed to be one much later than when the example happens. Tassadar was voiced by Michael Gough in the first game but he (or rather, his spirit) is voiced by Michael Dorn, and sounds noticeably different from before. In Heroes of the Storm, however, Michael Gough once again voices him. So why the discrepancy? Turns out that the spirit of Tassadar was actually an illusion displayed by the Xel'naga Ouros, as explained in Legacy Of The Void... and Ouros is voiced by Michael Dorn.
- Star Fox: Every character has gone through at least two different voice actors, with previous ones sometimes returning after a while.
- For example, Fox McCloud was voiced by Mike West in Star Fox 64 and its remake, Star Fox Zero, and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Ultimate. In the animated short "The Battle Begins", he's voiced by Joe Zieja. In the fourteen years between 64 and its remake, Fox was voiced by Steve Malpass (Super Smash Bros. Melee and Star Fox Adventures) and Jim Walker (Star Fox: Assault and Super Smash Bros. Brawl).
- The Japanese versions aren't free from this. Unlike most examples, though this was the result of them expanding the cast to reduce the amount of Acting for Two, as 64 had only six voice actors. One example is Shinobu Satouchi voicing both Fox and Leon in 64, before Kenji Nojima came into to take over as Fox for Assault and Brawl. The only seiyuus who stayed throughout were Hisao Egawa (Falco), Kyoko Tonguu (Slippy and Katt in 64), and Tomohisa Aso (Peppy)... until the remake of 64 replaced the entire Japanese cast.
- In Star Wars: Rebel Assault, Ru Murleen was originally played by an actress with the same name, but recast with Julie Eccles in the sequel.
- While Street Fighter does this frequently, the most notable cases are...
- The Street Fighter Alpha series, where in between Alpha 2 and Alpha 3, Ryu went from Katashi Ishizuka to Toshiyuki Morikawa. In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Ishizuka's sounds were used for grunts and most attack calls, but Ryu's cry of "Shin Shoryuken!" was Morikawa.
- In Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, everybody was replaced save Akuma (Tomomichi Nishimura) and Ibuki (Yuri Amano).
- In the Japanese version of Street Fighter IV, everybody is recast except for Ken (Yuji Kishi from Street Fighter III 3rd Strike onward), Blanka (Yuji Ueda as of Street Fighter Alpha 3), Makoto (voiced by Makoto Tsumura in both of her appearances), Yun (Kentaro Ito from 3rd Strike on), Yang (Masakazu Suzuki from 3rd Strike on) and M. Bison (Norio Wakamoto as of Capcom vs. SNK). Curiously, Yuji Ueda does not reprise his role as Vega, instead being replaced by Junichi Suwabe, and Toru Okawa is no longer Ryu, but his master Gouken.
- Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, the 2017 Updated Re-release of Street Fighter II, contains a "New Generation Voice Mode" where all of the original 1991-1993 voice lines were replaced with clips of the present day voice actors who joined the franchise in Street Fighter IV. Violent Ken also makes his official SF debut here, with Yuji Kishi replacing Atsushi "Monster" Maezuka from SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
- Laura Bailey more or less was the official English voice of Chun-Li for a decade, starting in 2009's Street Fighter IV and continuing in both the mainline series and crossovers like Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter X Tekken and Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. In June 2022, it was announced that Jennie Kwan would officially be taking over as Chun-Li in Street Fighter 6. Additionally, Ray Chase replaces Travis Willingham as Guile, David Matranga replaces Reuben Langdon as Ken, Luis Bermudez replaces Taliesin Jaffe as Blanka and Zeno Robinson replaces Chris Cain as Dee Jay.
- Super Mario Bros.
- Princess Peach and Bowser have had a multitude of voices, whereas Charles Martinet consistently voiced most of the male characters until retiring from the franchise in 2023. For Peach, there is:
- Mami Yamase: The Great Mission To Rescue Princess Peach! OVA.
- Miyako Endo: Amada OVA series.
- Jeannie Elias: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.
- Tracey Moore: The Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World cartoons.
- Jocelyn Bedford: Hotel Mario.
- Leslie Swan: Super Mario 64 (and its Video Game Remake Super Mario 64 DS), the English version of Mario Kart 64, and Super Paper Mario.
- Asako Kozuki: Japanese Mario Kart 64, both the Japanese and English versions of Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Mario Party 1 and 2.
- Jen Taylor: Mario Golf up to Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games.
- Nicole Mills: Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Super Mario Strikers/Mario Smash Football.
- Samantha Kelly began in Mario Strikers Charged and is Peach's current voice actress at this time.
- And for Bowser, there is:
- Naoki Tatsuta: BS Super Mario Collection
- Akiko Wada: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! OVA.
- Masaharu Satō: Amada OVA series
- The late Harvey Atkin: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World cartoons.
- Rob Wallace: Mario Is Missing!!
- Marc Graue: Hotel Mario
- Bruce Robertson: Mario's Time Machine
- Scott Burns: Super Mario Sunshine up to Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games
- Eric Newsome: Super Paper Mario
- Kenny James voiced him in Super Mario Strikers/Mario Smash Football but he didn't return until Super Mario Galaxy where he became Bowser's current voice actor.
- While Charles Martinet voiced both Mario Bros. until 2023, this wasn't the case early on in the Nintendo 64 era, when the bros were first Suddenly Voiced. In the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64, Luigi's voice was instead provided by Julian Bardakoff, the then-president of Nintendo of France, who gave him a noticeably higher pitched voice than we're used to now. While Martinet would replace Bardakoff in the international version of Mario Kart 64, the latter's voice clips would be reused in all versions of many future spinoff games such as the first two Mario Party games and all versions of Mario Kart: Super Circuit, so it wasn't until the GameCube era that Martinet was consistently the voice of Luigi.
- Wario was also originally voiced by Thomas Spindler, an employee of Nintendo's German division, in the Japanese version of Mario Kart 64 and the first two Mario Party titles. It wasn't until Mario Party 3 that Martinet became Wario's permanent voice actor until 2023.
- Princess Daisy from Super Mario Land was voiced by Kate Fleming for her return to the series in Mario Tennis and Jen Taylor for her first three appearances in the Mario Party series. Starting with Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Deanna Mustard became Daisy's voice actress until 2023, with her final time voicing Daisy being Mario Strikers Battle League. Needless to say, Deanna Mustard's take on Daisy is much, much different from Fleming and Taylor's. Mustard was replaced with Giselle Fernandez in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, with Fernandez's take on Daisy actually being so strongly similar to Mustard's that few realized she had been replaced until Fernandez themself confirmed it.
- Rosalina had been voiced by Mercedes Rose in Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 and Mario Kart Wii, and she was voiced by Kerri Kane in Mario Kart 7, Mario Golf: World Tour, the fourth and fifth Super Smash Bros., and is currently voiced by Laura Faye Smith. There seems to have been a strange bit of flipflopping between Smith and Kane, as Smith first voiced Rosalina in Super Mario 3D World, which was released before World Tour, but she has since gone back to voicing Rosalina from Mario Kart 8 onwards.
- The Koopalings have also had some voice changes in the series. In Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. They were voice by were voiced by Masaharu Satō (Larry and Iggy), Miyako Endō (Morton and Wendy), and Naoki Tatsuta (Roy, Lemmy, and Ludwig). In the DIC Cartoons they were voiced by James Ransken (Larry aka Cheatsy), Gordon Masten (Morton aka Big Mouth), Tabitha St. Germain (Wendy aka Kootie Pie), Tara Strong (Iggy aka Hop), Dan Hennessey (Roy aka Bully), Stuart Stone (Lemmy aka Hip), and Michael Stark (Ludwig aka Kooky). In the Super Mario Games starting with New Super Mario Bros Wii, they were given in-game dialogue for the first time. In the New Super Mario Bros. games and the fouth and fifth Super Smash Bros. Games, Larry, Morton, Wendy and Lemmy were voiced by Lani Minella, Iggy and Ludwig were voiced by Mike Vaughn, and Roy was voiced by Dan Falcone. However in Mario Kart 8 Lani Minella was replaced by Michelle Hippe (Larry), David Cooke (Morton), Ashley Flannegan (Wendy), and Carlee McManus (Lemmy), while Mike Vaughn was replaced by Ryan Higgins (Iggy) and David J. Goldfarb (Ludwig) respectively. This makes Dan Falcone (Roy) the only voice actor who was not replaced.
- Yoshi was originally voiced on the Super Mario World cartoon by Andrew Sabiston, while in the games he's voiced by Kazumi Totaka starting with Yoshi's Story and continuing to the present day.
- In her first voiced appearance in Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64, Birdo was voiced by Jessica Chisum. She was then voiced by Jen Taylor in Super Mario Advance, a remake of Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Game Boy Advance. From Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour onwards, Birdo is voiced by Kazumi Totaka.
- Donkey Kong was originally voiced by the late Soupy Sales in the Donkey Kong segments of Saturday Supercade, then by Gary Chalk on Captain N: The Game Master, and by Richard Yearwood for the Donkey Kong Country cartoon (with Sterling Jarvis providing his singing voice). In the games proper, Grant Kirkhope voiced DK from Donkey Kong 64 all the way through Mario vs. Donkey Kong, after which Takashi Nagasako took over from Mario Power Tennis onwards.
- Diddy Kong was voiced on the Donkey Kong Country cartoon by Andrew Sabiston (who funnily enough had previously voiced Yoshi on the Super Mario World cartoon) and by Chris Sutherland in the games from Diddy Kong Racing until Mario Power Tennis, where Katsumi Suzuki took over from that point onwards.
- From his debut in Super Mario Sunshine until Mario Party DS, Bowser Jr. was voiced by Dolores Rogers. Starting with Mario Strikers Charged, he is voiced by Caety Sagoian.
- Although Charles Martinet consistently voiced Mario from 1992 until his retirement from voice acting in 2023, there has been a flip-flop of voices over the years.
- Tōru Furuya, his main Japanese voice actornote
- Peter Cullen in Saturday Supercade's Donkey Kong cartoon.
- Captain Lou Albano in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
- Walker Boone in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.
- Ronald B. Ruben in Mario Teaches Typing.
- Bob Hoskins for the live-action Super Mario Bros. movie.
- Marc Graue in Hotel Mario.
- Charles Martinet himself starting with a series of pinball machines from 1992.
- And finally, Chris Pratt in Illumination's The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Ironically, Charles Martinet is part of the voice cast, but not as Mario or Luiginote , but rather as their father.
- When Martinet finally did retire from voice acting in 2023, his multiple roles needed to be permanently recast for the first time in decades. As a result, that year's Super Mario Bros. Wonder sees Kevin Afghani taking over as the voices of Mario and Luigi. WarioWare: Move It! has Afghani taking over as Wario as well.
- Princess Peach and Bowser have had a multitude of voices, whereas Charles Martinet consistently voiced most of the male characters until retiring from the franchise in 2023. For Peach, there is:
- Super Robot Wars:
- Super Robot Wars BX features the following changes (due to the originals having already passed):
- Sencho from Giant Gorg: Masao Imanishi to Noriyuki Hori.
- Manon from Giant Gorg: Mitsuo Gunji to Tomohiro Tsuboi.
- Don Slasen from Panzer World Galient: Shingo Kanemoto to Naomi Kusumi.
- Mardal from Panzer World Galient: Seizō Katō to Hidekatsu Shibata.
- Super Robot Wars UX:
- Caligula goes from the late Daisuke Gōri to Kenta Miyake, Nero from Mia Naruse to Ari Hinohara, and Jack Smith from Yoshikazu Sato to Kenji Nomura. Claudius zig-zags this, as Yuka Imai previously portrayed him in the drama CD before Tomoko Kawakami took over for the anime. With Kawakami's passing, Imai retakes the role.
- A weird case involving Fei-Yen HD: it seems to be voiced by Saki Fujita, NOT by Hatsune Miku, the musical software whose voice banks Fujita provided for, possibly because using the software itself for the game could give her a very unnatural sounding voice for an action-oriented game.note
- Super Robot Wars V
- Vuitton and Kochou go from Shoko Kanoki and the late Chieko Honda to Yuriko Fuchisaki and Natsuko Kuwatani.
- As Masashi Hirose is still hospitalized, Minoru Inaba voices Goer in his place.
- Crux Dogatie was voiced by the late Ichirō Nagai in Alpha 2. Here, he is voiced by Mugihito, his voice actor in the SD Gundam G Generation series starting with Spirits.
- Super Robot Wars BX features the following changes (due to the originals having already passed):
- Super Smash Bros. mostly has this occur when the character in question was subject to this in their home franchise, with one example being Sonic the Hedgehog switching from Jason Griffith to Roger Craig Smith. Examples separate from this are:
- The only voice actors from Kid Icarus: Uprising to reprise their roles in the 3DS and Wii U iterations are Antony Del Rio (as Pit and Dark Pit) and Hynden Walch (as Viridi). Brandy Kopp voices Palutena (Darrining for Ali Hillis), Patrick Seitz voices Magnus (Darrining for Fred Tatasciore), and Stephanie Komure voices Phosphora (Darrining for Kari Wahlgren). In Ultimate, Viridi is voiced by Dayci Brookshire instead.
- Zig-zagged with Lucario, who was originally voiced in the anime series by Sean Schemmel. The role went to Bill Rogers in Brawl before returning to Schemmel for later Smash installments.
- Lauren Landa voices female Robin, in place of Michelle Ruff and Wendee Lee from Fire Emblem: Awakening.
- Kosuke Toriumi replaced Matt Harty as Little Mac's voice actor.
- The announcer is Jeff Manning in 64, Dean Harrington in Melee, Pat Cashman in Brawl, and Xander Mobus in 3DS and Wii U and Ultimate.
- Sly Cooper: The voice of Carmelita Fox was replaced in each game. She was played by Roxana Ortega in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, then by Alesia Glidewell in Sly 2: Band of Thieves, then Ruth Livier in Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, and then by Grey DeLisle in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. It didn't help that each voice actress gave Carmelita a different accent.
- In the Syphon Filter series, Mara Aramov has had four noticeably different voice actresses, the latter two being American rather than native Russian. Lian Xing has been voiced by three actresses; Ava Fang (her only known acting role) in 1, Zoe Galvez in 2 and 3, and Kim Mai Guest in all subsequent games, complete with different looks and personalities. Gabe Logan also switched voice actors from John Chacon to James Arnold Taylor starting with The Omega Strain.
- Tales Series:
- Most of the English voice case of Tales of Symphonia was replaced for the sequel, Dawn of the New World. Of the original nine plus Yuan that reappear only Colette (Heather Hogan-Watson) and Kratos (Cam Clarke), who's the narrator, retain their original VAs. Everybody else was replaced (Lloyd goes from Scott Menville to Brian Beacock, Sheena from Jennifer Hale to Megan Hollingshead, Genis from Colleen O'Shaughnessey to Tara Sands, Zelos from Shiloh Strong to Christopher Corey Smith, Presea from Tara Strong to Janice Kawaye, and Regal from Crispin Freeman to Dave Wittenberg).
- In the original Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny II), Reid was voiced by Kevin Miller; Sam Riegel took over in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology and the cameo battle in Tales of the Abyss.
- Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike:
- Troy Baker and Sam Riegel reprise their roles as Yuri and Flynn from the game; however, the other three game characters appearing in the movie were replaced by Funimation Texan voice actors (Rita went from Michelle Ruff to Luci Christian, Estelle from Danielle Judovits to Cherami Leigh, and Raven from Joe J. Thomas to Jonathan Brooks).
- For the Updated Re-release of Vesperia in 2019, Troy Baker was replaced as Yuri by Grant George. According to Baker, he hadn't been contacted about the chance to reprise his role.
- The cast of Tales of Phantasia (GBA) was voiced in Japan, with English-speaking voice actors residing there; in every other Tales media where Phantasia characters show up, they were replaced by Californian talent.
- In the Japanese side, Mint is voiced by Satomi Koorogi in Phantasia's SNES and GBA versions, and by Junko Iwao everywhere else.
- Dhaos was voiced by the late Kaneto Shiozawa for the original game and the PS1 remake, and Toshiyuki Morikawa everywhere else.
- In the Tales of VS, Nanaly Fletch is now voiced by Yumi Kakazu, due to the same reason why Soi Fon got a new voice actor: Nanaly's original voice actor Tomoko Kawakami was on sick leave and later died.
- In Team Fortress 2, the Engineer is ordinarily voiced by Grant Goodeve, but when he was occupied Nolan North took over for the "Expiration Date" short. Likewise, the Soldier's voice actor Rick May came down with throat cancer and North had to do his trademark scream. May has since passed, so it is assumed that Soldier will have to be recast in any future projects.
- Teen Titans (2006) has nearly every voice actor reprising their roles from the cartoon the game is based on. The one exception is Mad Mod, who is voiced by Greg Ellis instead of Malcolm McDowell.
- Tekken has lots of this. Basically everyone from the first two games had their voice actor changed in games set after the 17-year Time Skip. Aside from this drastic change (which is far too many to list), there are other examples:
- Series creator Katsuhiro Harada voices Marshall Law's battle grunts from his debut game until 5, while his cutscene voice in 5 is done by Robert Clotworthy. In 6, both of his cutscene voice and battle grunts are now done by David Vincent. Harada also voices Yoshimitsu until 4, where he is replaced by Tomokazu Seki.
- Paul Phoenix is voiced by Eric Kelso from 3 to 5, and Jamieson Price from 6 onwards.
- Nina Williams is voiced by Lisle Wilkerson in 4, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn from 5 onwards. In the English dub of Bloodline, she is voiced by Erika Harlacher.
- Anna Williams is voiced by Lenne Hardt (AKA The Crazy PRIDE Lady) in 5, before being replaced by Tara Platt from 6 onwards.
- Lei Wulong is voiced by Hiroya Ishimaru from 3 to 5, and David Jeremiah from 6 onwards. Bizarrely, Jeremiah dropped the Hong Kong accent that Ishimaru used for Lei (who's a Hongkonger) in favor of a generic American accent.
- Hwoarang is voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa from 3 to 4, and Um Sang Hyun when he starts speaking Korean in 5. Sang Hyun also voices Hwoarang's teacher, Baek Doo San, in 5, but he is replaced by Byeong Hwa Yun in 6.
- Bruce Irvin is voiced by Crispin Freeman in 5. Nobody knows who voices him in 6, but he is certainly not Freeman.
- Eddy Gordo is voiced by Marcellus Nealy in 5, and Roger Craig Smith in 6.
- Julia Chang is voiced by Annie Wood in 5, and Stephanie Sheh from 6 onwards. In Bloodline, she is voiced by Jeannie Tirado.
- Heihachi Mishima is voiced by Daisuke Gōri from 3 to 6. After Gōri committed suicide, he is replaced by Unshō Ishizuka from Tag 2 to 7 (this is referenced in Tag 2, where Heihachi is made younger). Ishizuka passed away after 7, and he is subsequently replaced by Taiten Kusunoki for Bloodline.
- Ling Xiaoyu is voiced by Yumi Touma from her debut game until Tag 2, where she is replaced by Maaya Sakamoto.
- Steve Fox has an RP accent when Ezra J. Stanley voices him in 4. Infamously, the accent turns into a bizarre mix of RP and Cockney when Stanley is replaced by Guy Perryman in 5. In 6, Perryman is replaced by Gideon Emery, who seems to settle on an Estuary accent (which is much more appropriate for a guy like Steve).
- Raven is voiced by Jack Merluzzi in 5, and D.C. Douglas from 6 onwards.
- Lili is voiced by Joy Jacobson until Tag 2, when she begins speaking French and is consequently replaced by Laura Blanc.
- Lee is voiced by William Word in 4 (where he speaks entirely in unaccented English), and Ryōtarō Okiayu from 5 onwards (where he mostly speaks in Japanese but sometimes breaks into Gratuitous English).
- Leroy is voiced by Beau Billingslea in the games, and Krizz Kaliko in Bloodline.
- Tenchu: The series in general, in both English and Japanese; they constantly changed studios from game to game. To mention the English examples:
- Rikimaru went from Paul Lucas in the first game, to Rino Romano in the second, to Daniel Dae Kim in the third and Liam O'Brien in the fourth.
- Ayame went from Terry Osada in the first game, to Debi Mae West in the second, to Michelle Krusiec in the third and an unknown voice actress in the fourth.
- Onikage went from Seiichi Hirai in the first game to Paul St. Peter in the fourth
- Tatsumaru went from David Moore in the second to Quinton Flynn in the third.
- Tomb Raider: Lara Croft has had four voice actresses over 12 years and 8 games, each one bringing a totally different spin on Lara's personality. She even changes in appearance, and has been played in live action promo shots by at least five different women, not even counting Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander in the film adaptions. This was done deliberately so that no actress will be able to dominate the character. Sofía Vergara played what is essentially the Jolie version of the character in this TV spot for Visa credit cards.
- Uncharted 4: A Thief's End: Harry Flynn got another voice for the multiplayer mode. Valentine claims that he wasn't even contacted, while ND claims that they couldn't come to an agreement to get him to return.
- In the first game of the Uncle Albert's Adventures series, Uncle Albert is played and voiced by Michel Beaujard. Starting from the next game, he's played by Maurice Lustyk and voiced by Patrice Baudrier.
- Under Night In-Birth:
- In Melty Blood, Sion Eltnam Atlasia was voiced by Rio Natsuki. When she became a guest fighter in UNIB, Satomi Akesaka (Sion, now known as "Eltnum") took over the roles.
- Subverted by the other Guest Fighter, Akatsuki from Akatsuki Blitzkampf: the trope seems to be played straight since the credits for Blitzkampf cite "Shouji Hijikata" as his seiyuu and UNIB lists Shinobu Matsumoto instead... but it looks like "Shouji Hijikata" is the aforementioned Shinobu Matsumoto, only now using his birth name rather than a pseudonym.
V to Z
- The entire English cast of Valkyrie Profile changed between the first game and the second due to a switch in dubbing groups (TAJ Productions did the first game; Bang Zoom! Entertainment did the second). The only exception was Valkyrie Lenneth's voice actress, Megan Hollingshead, who voiced her in both games; this was actually because Hollingshead had transitioned from TAJ/4Kids Entertainment (New York) to Bang Zoom! (California) a few years after the first game was released. Also, Kikuko Inoue voiced Valkyrie Hrist in the first game, and Atsuko Tanaka voiced her in the second.
- Warcraft: Many major characters have gotten a new voice actor for their World of Warcraft incarnation (although a few have retained their original lines).
- The most notable example would be Illidan, the Big Bad of the first expansion and many others directly connected to him. Illidan was originally voiced by Matthew Yang King in Warcraft III but was replaced by Liam O'Brien in all the subsequent appearances.
- At least Illidan's new voice actor sounds quite like his old one. Arthas (the titular villain of Wrath of the Lich King and the focal character for much of Warcraft III and its expansion) was originally voiced by Justin Gross but was given an entirely new actor, Patrick Seitz, to voice him from Wrath of the Lich King onward. note As for the Lich King himself, his new voice is Michael McConnohie, who already plays Kel'thuzad and, strangely, Uther the Lightbringer.
- Partway through the Wrath of The Lich King expansion, Sylvanas, who was originally voiced by Piera Coppola, was abruptly re-voiced by a new actress, Patty Mattson, who gave her a more prominent accent. Many fans of the character were upset with this, claiming the accent doesn't fit the character.
- Its card game spinoff, Hearthstone, gets a lot of this as well. Chances are, if a character from a card set reappears 2 or so years later, there's a good chance they'll sound significantly different. One obvious example you can compare in-game live is with Khadgar, the Mage hero skin, with Khadgar, the Mage legendary minion from Rise of Shadows.
- Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, a video game tie-in to the live-action film, has the Comedian voiced by Mark Silverman instead of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Silk Spectre II voiced by Andrea Baker instead of Malin Åkerman and Dr. Manhattan voiced by Crispin Freeman instead of Billy Crudup.
- Multiple characters in Webkinz have had their voices changed repeatedly, most notably Ms. Birdy. While her original voice was almost grandmother-like, her new voice is higher-pitched and sounds younger. Tabby von Meow's voice was also changed in 2011.
- The Wolfenstein series since it got proper voice work in 2001's Return to Castle Wolfenstein has nevertheless almost never retained voice actors between games, as per its tendency to go on near-decade-long Sequel Gaps and get handed off to a new company:
- In Return to Castle Wolfenstein, what little B.J. Blazkowicz says is voiced by Matt Kaminsky, while the Director of the OSA is Tony Jay and Wilhelm "Deathshead" Strasse is voiced by an unknown and uncredited actor. For the 2009 Wolfenstein, B.J. is now Peter Jessop, and the Director and Deathshead are both Robin Atkin Downes. Interestingly, his assistant "Jack" isn't an example, as other sources indicate that the James Alcroft-voiced Jack from Return is a different person from the Shaun O'Hagan-voiced Jack in 2009.
- In the 2009 game, Caroline Becker is Anna Graves, while in Wolfenstein: The New Order, she is now Bonita Friedericy, and B.J. is now Brian Bloom. Deathshead is a double-example, as his English lines are provided by Dwight Schultz, while those in German are Kaspar Eichel.
- Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a retake on the events of the first chapter from Return, but those characters who aren't replaced by expies have different voices - Agent One went from Jim Piddock to Ronan Summers, and Kessler went from another unknown actor to Urs Remond.
- The World Ends with You: When the 5 main characters of the former series appeared in Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], only 4 of them were voiced by their original voices — Neku (Jesse David Corti), Shiki (Heather Hogan-Watson), Joshua (Aaron Spann), and Beat (Crawford Wilson). Rhyme, who was originally voiced by Kate Higgins, is voiced by Ashley Rose Orr in Dream Drop Distance.
- The Xenosaga games had three entries in the series, and mixed and matched their actors throughout; for example, Episode 2 replaced Lia Sargent as Shion with Olivia Hack; Bridget Hoffman as KOS-MOS with Colleen O'Shaughnessey; Sherry Lynn as MOMO with Christina Puccelli; and Derek Stephen Prince as Chaos with Joshua Seth. Episode 3 replaced Shion and KOS-MOS with their original voice actors while keeping the rest of the main cast from Episode 2.
- The rerelease of the 1992 X-Men arcade game had redubbed the lines with all the characters voiced by Kyle Hebert and Mela Lee.
- X-Men Legends: Magneto and Colossus lose their well-known voice actors (Tony Jay and Earl Boen) for the sequels, in which they were replaced by Richard Green and Jim Ward respectively. Cyclops and Pyro (both voiced by Robin Atkin Downes) were also recast so Josh Keaton and John Kassir took his roles.
- In Zero Time Dilemma, almost none of the voice actors from Virtue's Last Reward return.
- Matthew Mercer replaces Troy Baker as Sigma.
- Eden Riegel replaces Laura Bailey as Diana.
- Rena Strober replaces Ali Hillis as Akane, and would also later replace Hillis's original performance in the Nonary Games version of Virtue's Last Reward.
- Evan Smith replaces Dave B. Mitchell as Junpei (justified here as a Time-Shifted Actor).