Wayne June, the incomparable voice actor, narrator and gameplay commentator of the Darkest Dungeon series, known in-game as The Ancestor, has passed away. On behalf of developer Red Hook Studios, co-founder and creative director Chris Bourassa confirmed his passing and wrote: "It is one of my life's great honours to have written for him this past decade. Though I never got to shake his hand, I knew him to be a friend."
Suppose you've never played the punishing dark RPG series. In that case, it's hard to overstate just how dramatically June's atmospheric work elevates Red Hook's already excellent gameplay throughout a 40+ hour campaign, a truly essential component. As a reminder, we've added the original cinematic and our introduction to the iconic character above.
But its the dozens upon dozens of bleak incidental quips and lengthy story bits, cheering you on after a particularly satisfying critical hit, consistent across multiple games and DLC, that puts June's performance on an entirely different level.