Doomfist has always been that mysterious figure lurking in the background of Overwatch, somebody alluded to from the very first launch trailer.
He’s a mythic man with a bloody history–and he’s not even the original Doomfist. Akande Ogundimu is the third Doomfist–after he killed his mentor, Akinjide Adeyemi. We all knew he was going to be coming at some point…
And that’s when Terry Crews happened.
It almost sounded perfect when the rumor mill began to blow up. Terry Crews recently, quite publicly, announced his love for PC games–he even built his own custom PC and broke down the process of the build to his fans. The PC community–and gamers in general–adored him for showing off his nerdiness. He even showed off his love of Overwatch…and that’s when the wheels began to turn.
Then this happened:
Terry showed up at Blizzard and the Overwatch community went insane–was Terry going to be the voice of Doomfist?!
He even began lobbying on Twitter about it:
Who wants to hear me do the voice of Doomfist for real?? https://t.co/l4aszRrDYE
— terrycrews (@terrycrews) January 4, 2017
But as we all know–Doomfist dropped onto the PTR last week, and doesn’t have Doomfist’s voice at all.
Thank you, Blizzard. Thank you for being bold.
This is not a “I hate Terry Crews” post. I love the dude. How can you not? He’s so fucking funny and just seems like a genuinely good dude. His role on Brooklyn Nine-Nine is one of my favorites…and let’s not even mention the old spice commericals.
However, it’s been well know for some time that Doomfist is African–he has posters all over the Numbani map, which, if you somehow missed is based in Africa–near Nigeria in Earth’s future. Doomfist attacking Numbani is also how we get to meet Orisa, an OR-15 unit who was saved from the scrap pile by Efi after that battle destroyed the entire city’s fleet of OR-15s.
That means, rather appropriately, that Doomfist would have an African accent–which he does! This is who plays Doomfist:
Doomfist's voice actor is Sahr Ngaujah, an American theater director and actor known for The Signal, Steppin' (2007) & Money Monster (2016). pic.twitter.com/QNWP1OWcqz
— OverwatchGG (@OverwatchGG) July 6, 2017
This is why I love Blizzard–they are going for authenticity when it comes to their story and their characters. My favorite example of this is Ana, who in the game is Egyptian. So they cast an Egyptian–Aysha Selim–to portray her! If I’m not mistaken, they also like to use relatively unknown people–but man they have immense talent. I truly believe Overwatch has one of the finest voice casts out there in a game.
Terry Crews would have ruined that.
First off, it’s the celebrity behind the game–he’s just simply huge–he’s larger than life itself. His energy is ridiclious. I think what truly cemented me not wanting him as Doomfist came from this video:
He’s kind of fucking ridiclious in this trailer–and that’s excactly how he would have played Doomfist. Looking at what we now know about Doomfist–his backstory, how he believes chaos is the way to humanity moving forward–this is a pretty fucking somber dude. Terry Crews doesn’t fit that mold whatsoever.
So thank you Blizzard, for not bending to the power of celebrity and the internet. For those who are still hating the decision…
Go play fucking Crackdown 3 when it comes out….
