As anyone who loves gaming (or has children who do) knows, the video game industry is booming — finding new methods of storytelling and redefining what interactive entertainment looks like is always at the forefront of development.
To imbue games with immersive plot lines, game creators see the importance of voice acting and motion capturing. That’s where Alexander Peters comes in.
Peters, who currently lives in Winkler, is a voice actor with ten years of experience. When he is not lending his versatile sound to projects, he can also be heard reporting the news through Golden West Broadcasting as an anchor.
On October 3rd, Peters’ voice will grace the computer screens and consoles of gamers worldwide. He voices Liam in MechWarrior 5: Clans. Peters was contacted with the opportunity in Vancouver last year.
“My wife and I moved out to Vancouver a couple years back [so that] I could do film and TV. I did some indie movies [and] I did some short films,” he says. “One of the directors on one of the projects I had worked on [contacted me] around Christmas of last year and he [said], ‘hey, you were really good in this film that we worked on together, and I've got a gig where I'm going to be directing a motion capture project,' and that's all I knew about it at the time.”
Although Peters did not have motion capture experience, he jumped on the opportunity, sent in his audition, and then got the part of Liam.
“That was really exciting,” he says. “My agent gave me a call, and he [said], ‘hey, this is happening and it's bigger than you thought it was.’”
The motion capture process turned out to be a very technical and elaborate one.
“Once it gets to actual core gameplay, you can't write interactive lines without knowing what the levels are going to look like,” he says. “If I'm on a desert planet and I am interacting with boulders, I need to know where the boulders are so I can voice accordingly. So, we had to wait for . . . levels to be designed for us to be able to do our voiceovers.”
The motion capture process requires actors to wear a suit with sensors attached to it at various points on the body. The sensors ensure that the nuances of each movement are recorded.
“They're incredibly tight suits,” says Peters. “I took no photos because nobody needs to see that.”
Throughout the process, Peters was pleased to note that it had similarities to theatre performance, with which he also has experience.
“With motion capture, . . . essentially they're filming everyone all at once. You have the sensors all over your body conveying that information to the computer and then later on . . . the director can move the digital camera wherever he wants and catch those images of you, so they don't have to worry about different angles,” he says. “You can just do scene after scene and it feels very much like a play.”
As Peters describes it, MechWarrior 5: Clans is a “science fiction war game.”
“[The story takes place in] the world in the future. Humanity is still at war with itself, but we take it to the stars. There's a mass exodus of . . . civilians that leave Earth and go to what's called the Outer Sphere,” he says. “There's a war going on the entire time inside our solar system called the Inner Sphere, and my people are coming back to take our world.”
In addition to its intricate storyline, Peters says that the game has one particularly unique feature.
“You can play the campaign together [with friends], which is really cool. Not a lot of video games let you do that, [usually] you have to play stories by yourself.”
Peters is a part of a video game franchise deeply rooted in video game history. The series has entertained generations of gamers since 1984 on computers and various consoles from the Super NES and the Sega Genesis to the Xbox and PlayStation.
The latest game in the series will be available on the Xbox and PlayStation in October as well as Steam.
Below, listen to the complete interviews with Peters and watch Liam's character profile.
~With files from Connie Bailey and Ty Hildebrand~