Voice and motion capture actor Neil Newbon, known to fans of Baldur's Gate 3 as Astarion, is streaming a co-op let's play of Baldur's Gate 3 alongside friend and horror writer-director Tom de Ville. As they stream they laugh along to the game, and yeah, Newbon does The Astarion Voice a lot when he's in control of, you know, the character he played in the game.
The most interesting bit is that Newbon's definitely got some insight into how much of it was motion captured and acted—not just for his own role, either. Newbon also apparently did the motion capture for some other pieces of BG3, including the motions during the origin character creation sections. I plopped in some of those highlights as YouTube shorts below.
The other cool thing is that, in the third episode, Newbon and de Ville are joined by Amelia Tyler, the narrator voice for Baldur's Gate 3. It's a neat combination of commentary alongside gameplay with a very loose interview format of talking about game production and Tyler's experience on the production.
Tyler's no stranger to streaming herself, nor to making funny videos. We love her outtake clips from narrating BG3. Hearing her talk about the experience of making BG3 is pretty cool, as while many of the other cast members were able to meet each other while recording motion capture, Tyler's massive contribution to the game was practically unknown to much of the cast until release.
I will say that co-host de Ville has some problems with his microphone in the first installment. They're mostly gone in later ones! Worth sticking out for if you're a fan of Let's Plays.
You can find the first part of Newbon's playthrough on YouTube, though he's also streaming it on Twitch. The part featuring Amelia Tyler is Part 3 on Youtube.
