It’s a sunny afternoon at a bustling Manhattan intersection and two nannies are deep in conversation. “I’ve never even held a baby before this job,” one of them confides. “It feels foreign AF to me. Can you give me some pointers maybe?” Without hesitating, her colleague — wearing a puffy green jacket and gripping a stroller — responds, “Keep the baby alive.” Sage advice. “Keep the baby clean.” Also important. “And make sure when you change the diapers … use some of that petroleum jelly.” Which prompts the deeply unqualified caretaker to respond, “I’m sorry, we’re putting gasoline on these children?”
It’s about at this point that it becomes somewhat surprising that Spider-Man — hovering too closely in the background — has chosen not to intervene in the name of child welfare.
Of course, he’s the main draw of Spider-Man 2, the newest iteration of the hit series by Insomniac Games. Since its release in mid-October, the game has drawn acclaim from critics and gamers alike on its way to becoming the fastest-selling first-party game ever. While it’s clear that the game gets many of the big things right — story, gameplay, graphics — it’s been the smaller irreverent interactions between non-player characters (NPC’s), such as the one above, that have garnered a surprising amount of attention. The reason for this is that Spider-Man 2, which takes place in New York City, manages to successfully capture one of the most enjoyable aspects of living there: The constant weird shit you overhear in passing.
A 20-something declaring she paid $25 for a drink just to use the bathroom at a bar. An older professional lamenting his struggles finding a new chiropractor after essential oils have failed him. A bro in a sports jersey exclaiming to everybody and nobody in particular how much he hates Boston. These are all plausible things you’d overhear on 6th Avenue if you tragically forgot your earbuds at home. But for them to all be said by NPCs you pass in a masterfully rendered replica of New York feels like something new yet refreshingly familiar. (While most of the NPCs keep true to form as New Yorkers and act entirely disinterested at a sight as extraordinary as Spider-Man, there are also of course some who cheer and excitedly take photos. Fucking tourists.)
“We try to have a lot of fun in our sessions,” said Patrick Michalak, the dialogue manager at Insomniac Games. “For this, we dug into our back pocket of actors that we really loved working with over the years, actors that we knew could play multiple roles in a day and improvise.”
The loose approach leaning on a mix of spontaneity, mundanity, and general silliness has bred numerous viral clips since the game’s release. They feature Spider-Man eavesdropping on everything from a construction crew discussing how to cut corners on a project to a deeply dysfunctional couple in Central Park on the verge of a breakup (another beloved New York pastime). Even former Firefly castmates Nathan Fillion and Alan “Steve the Pirate” Tudyk make a cameo as a couple of dudes in bodega-cat mascot costumes.
While more NPC Easter eggs are still being discovered, none of the interactions have gotten as much attention as the incompetent nannies — and nobody is more surprised by this development than the voice actors behind the characters.
“We’re like, ‘Oh my God, they’re never going to use this,” G.K. Bowes — whose character advised keeping babies clean and alive — remembered thinking at the time of recording. “And then it’s just like, ‘Oh, not only didn’t make it in the game, but people are loving it!’”
The interactions were captured during large atmosphere recording sessions involving numerous voice actors. Led by Michalak, the actors were paired off and given a description of who they were playing, some light cues to set up the context of the interaction, and then were encouraged to run wild with it for several minutes.
“Never in a million years did I think that something like this would receive any attention at all,” remarked Krizia Bajos, who voiced the nanny who mistook petroleum jelly for petrol. “NPCs are not supposed to garner much attention.”
It’s true. Although they’ve been given a glow-up in recent years with vehicles exploring the plight of the NPC such as Free Guy and Westworld (to an extent), the background characters you encounter while questing haven’t traditionally been all that interesting. They were there to add a little more texture to the game, but not necessarily substance.
“Most of the time when we do looping or background voices, or NPCs, we try to be professional and do our best while knowing nobody really hears this stuff,” said Bowes, who was a microbiologist and molecular geneticist before making the logical transition to voiceover artist. “The thing that was so special about this game, like, we were just encouraged to be silly and just go for it.”
Bajos recalls voicing several characters she particularly had fun with, including an insufferable yoga instructor, a street vendor selling tchotchkes, and a terrible EMT (“Like, I am not good at saving this person”). “For these sessions, we were on the floor in tears from laughing so hard, our cheeks hurt,” recalled Michalak. “There were a couple of times where I had to hide under the director’s desk so I didn’t ruin the take with my reaction. I was laughing so hard.”
By investing a lot of thought into what’s often an afterthought, Spider-Man 2 hasn’t just upped the expectation for NPCs in large-release games moving forward, it’s also offered perhaps a compelling argument against replacing voice actors with AI in the future — a hot-button issue in the industry.
“I think it’s inevitable that AI will infiltrate in certain ways that are not going to be comfortable for creatives,” said Bajos, who runs her own voiceover-acting school. “But I believe there is nothing that replaces the human spirit. I think there are people that are going to want to tap into that purity.”
She also noted her mistaking petroleum jelly for petrol — a common phrase from her upbringing in Puerto Rico — was a genuine (and very human) misunderstanding, rather than a bit. Bowes hopes “that people with the money will see this and be like, ‘This is authentic and organic.’” Or at least as authentic as an interaction can be with Spider-Man awkwardly hovering literally two feet away.
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