The recurring joke of Sean Bean playing a character that will eventually die is still ongoing, and apparently even in video games that is still the case. He recently did voice work for the Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV movie (take a guess who he voiced and what happened to him?) but Civilization VI is one of his proper voice work for a video game.
He is the narrator- the voice that greets you during the initial loading screen and reads quotes from the technology and civics tree. Pretty safe to say his prevalence throughout the game to narrate those quotes seems to secure his fate, right?
Apparently not.
The latest promo video for Civilization VI is a short interview with Sean Bean on the experience voice acting for a video game, then comes the shocking revelation: the narrator is a character in the game’s opening trailer, and at one point, he ended up dead in an airplane dogfight.
Sean Bean nonchalantly brushed it off by suggesting a new narrator takes his place for the next game, which is the tradition for the series ever since the late Leonard Nimoy- of Star Trek fame- voiced the narration for Civ IV. Interesting to see both him and 2K embracing the joke by doing this. It’s not much of an interview otherwise.
Civ VI is shaping to be a really decent 4X game that lives up to its predecessors. A smooth launch and a timely update released last month should be a good indicator if it’s worth picking up, though it’s still not perfect, especially on the AI side of things despite their efforts. Civ VI recently won best strategy game at the Game Awards as well, so that’s a good sign it’s worth checking out if you’re into turn-based strategy games. It’s out on Steam for RM179.