They found him: Bethesda's most prolific voice actor returns in Starfield

Ron Hope and and Imperial Guard, both voiced by Wes Johnson

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Bethesda loves to work with the set of voice actors in its stable, a well-tamed team of thoroughbreds who players get pretty familiar with over the course of the hundreds of hours we spend in these RPGs. I'm always partial to the many NPCs who sound like Stephen Russell, including Fallout 4's Nick Valentine and Codsworth, Fallout 3's incarnation of Harold the mutant, and Skyrim's talking dog Barbas, among others.

Wes Johnson is the most prolific Bethesda voice actor, going all the way back to Morrowind where he played three of the Daedric Princes. You may know him as Fawkes or Mister Burke from Fallout 3, but he's particularly notable for his contributions to Oblivion, where he voiced Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness, as well as assassin Lucien Lachance, and every single member of the Imperial Watch. If anybody shouted "Stop right there, criminal scum!" at you in Oblivion, that was Wes Johnson.

NO FUCKING SHOT they brought back the voice actor of the Imperial Guards from Oblivion and he's in Starfield😭 pic.twitter.com/qt8ND6X7IuSeptember 6, 2023

Eagle-eared players have found Johnson in Starfield as well, where he plays Ron Hope, the CEO of HopeTech, who can send you on a mission that involves tracking down a thief. He's definitely in Imperial City Guard mode here rather than flip-flopping between weird Irish and Scottish accents like he does for Sheogorath, but maybe he's saving that up for The Elder Scrolls 6. Here's how to find him for yourself in Starfield.

How to find Ron Hope

Ron Hope lives in the appropriately named HopeTown, a settlement on the rock-type planet Polvo in the Valo system. You'll encounter him naturally as part of the Freestar Rangers faction questline, which Morgan Park called "a system-hopping detective romp that I thoroughly recommend to players starting out". Joining the Freestar Collective also lets you unlock the Star Eagle ship, which has room for five crew and plenty of cargo, so it's worth doing.

To sign up with these space cowpokes, travel to Akila City in the Cheyenne system and talk to the Freestar Collective marshal, who you'll find outside Galbank near the city's entrance. While you're in Akila City you may as well recruit Sam Coe, voiced by Elias Toufexis, AKA Adam Jensen from the Deus Ex prequels. Though of course he's also a member of the Bethesda stable now, having voiced both Cog and Grand Zealot Brian Richter in Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC. I expect he'll return for The Elder Scrolls 6 as well.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.