Huh, Phantom: Covert Ops?!
That’s right, the legendary voice of Solid Snake himself, David Hayter, is appearing in nDreams’ upcoming VR stealth game, which we’ve already compared to the Metal Gear Solid series. Hayter will be playing General Zhurov, the ex-Soviet antagonist that runs the rogue Cold War-era naval installation that players infiltrate by kayak in the game. Whereas gamers are used to bringing Hayter along for the ride as they take down Metal Gear (except for Metal Gear Solid 5 but we don’t talk about that), this time they’ll be facing off against him. Check his work out in the new trailer below.
“This is sort of the gamer’s opportunity to take on Solid Snake now that he’s older and gone completely insane,” Hayter told me in an interview last week.
“It’s funny,” he later added, “my whole career I played heroes. I was Solid Snake, I was Captain America. And when I turned 40 it all turned to villains.”
nDreams itself sought out Hayter for the role as a nod to stealth gaming’s past. For the actor and screenwriter, it was a chance to not only return to a beloved genre but to try VR itself; the studio sent him an Oculus Quest. “You really feel — I hope they don’t mind me saying this but you really feel like Solid Snake in that kayak and moving through. So the ability to take on the antagonist role and shut that down was really fun and interesting. And I felt like this was a nice launching pad into the next-generation of what stealth games were going to be.”
It’s not actually Hayter’s first VR role; he appeared in episodic stealth series Republique, which was ported to VR a few years ago, and also had a little-known role in Oculus Rift launch app, Farlands. But this will be his biggest appearance in a native headset game yet.
“I did know that a lot of the character was going to come through in public address systems that are sort of barking orders,” he said. “So I will say it was a pretty extreme performance that took a lot out of me. I had to dominate this world, it’s like being the voice of God in this game.”
Now that he’s self-isolating like the rest of us, Hayter has been checking out a lot more of what VR has to offer. “I’ve been using it quite a bit,” he said. “I got The Room, which is so beautiful and amazing. My daughter and I do a lot of escape rooms and I got that. I’m about to get A Fisherman’s Tale, I haven’t tried that yet but it looks amazing. Vader Immortal was stunning, and playing in the lightsaber dojo quite a bit.”
Phantom: Covert Ops releases on June 25 for Oculus Rift and Quest. Check back soon for more coverage of the game.
