Voicing Thestus and Additional Voices in Mortal Shell II
Mortal Shell II released on August 20, 2026 with near-perfect reviews, and it marked a return to a character I first voiced years ago: Thestus.
Stepping back into a role after that much time is a specific kind of challenge. The voice has to feel familiar to fans, while also reflecting a character whose story has moved forward another thousand years.
Thestus was already more than a thousand years old in the original Mortal Shell. For Mortal Shell II, I was tasked with aging him even further.
So what does a 2,000-year-old Thestus sound like compared to his much younger, 1,000-year-old self?
What happened to him during those thousand years? Does he actually sound older? Or, at 2,000 years old, is Thestus still essentially a teenager?
Those were some of the questions the director and I had to answer as we found the voice for this version of the character. The goal wasn't simply to make him sound "older." We had to figure out what another thousand years of experience, history, and everything Thestus had endured would actually do to him.
I first voiced Thestus in the original Mortal Shell, so I already knew the character well going into this one. Harros the Vassal, on the other hand—one of my favorite characters I've voiced to date—doesn't make it very far into Mortal Shell II.
RIP Harros.
So while we don't get to hear him in this one, I'm very happy to have had the opportunity to return to the world of Mortal Shell and revisit Thestus after all these years.
Here's a look at Thestus in Mortal Shell II. You can also hear my original performance as Thestus in the Mortal Shell demos on my Demos page.