Todd Howard didn’t want Troy Baker as Indiana Jones

In a rather brutal turn of events, it turns out Bethesda figurehead and executive producer, Todd Howard, didn’t want Troy Baker to take on the leading role of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. He was even told that he “wasn’t what they wanted.”

In a Rolling Stone interview ahead of next month’s release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Howard and Baker sat down to discuss various aspects of MachineGames’ next project, which thankfully will not involve murdering dogs. Part of the discussion, though, turned to how the Bethesda bigwig wasn’t wanting to cast him in the role and how he was even told to his face during a Zoom meeting that he wasn’t what the exec wanted.

The thing is, with the massive catalog of voices Baker has alongside just the simple Midas-like touch he has, the voice actor, who also provided motion capture for Indy, was selected during a blind test where people chose him “every time.”

We felt for this project and the time period it was set in, we cast a pretty wide net. I’ll have you know, we did a blind taste test, and people chose you every time.”

Baker has become pretty well-established within the voice acting sphere with game roles like Brooker Dewitt from BioShock Infinite, Joel from The Last of Us, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Delsin Rowe from inFamous, and more. Beyond gaming, he’s also pretty well-established in animation, with roles like Jin Kariya from Bleach, Van Kleiss from Generator Rex, Grime from Amphibia and more.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle hits Xbox and PC, which is confirmed to run at 60 FPS, on December 9 with a springtime release to PS5.