Much to Todd Howard's chagrin, test audiences for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle loved Troy Baker as the lead: "They chose you every time."

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle appears to have been put in good shape by Bethesda, a much-needed victory for the studio that is pure joy for fans (including our own Ted Litchfield, who gave it an 86 in his review). Captures the essence of the action-adventure classic, like a modern-day Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for the popular franchise. This is partly due to the gentle tones of Troy Baker, who played the lead actor.

While poor old Baker is thrown into Nolan North’s bag of instantly recognizable voice actors being cast for everything, I think it’s easy to forget that the guy has some range. I remember him doing an exceptionally solid rendition of Mark Hamil’s Joker for some of the Arkham games, and it’s similar here, his chords hitting an Eau de Harrison Ford quite well.

Still, he has gone on record saying that Todd Howard didn’t want him cast because he’s in every game – and revealed a little more about what the slow reduction in Todd’s guesses looked like in a recent interview with the BBC’s Newsbeat . Baker states that the audition ultimately fell to him and another actor, leaving the deciding vote to the test audience.

“Todd Howard said, ‘They picked you every time,'” Baker reveals, giving me a very funny – if probably inaccurate – image of Todd Howard staring at a score sheet with his head in his hands 100% Troy, a landslide victory for his most unlikely choice. Baker told the BBC he was relieved and thought: “That was a compliment… he said: ‘No, it’s a challenge. That’s the standard.’” Our Howard is very quick to humiliate his subjects.

Unfortunately, Baker found no peace immediately after landing the role – he told the BBC that he thought he would be fired in the first few days of production. Only then did Howard have mercy on the poor bastard via email: “He said, ‘You’re doing a hell of a job,’ and I said, ‘You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.’ at the moment.”

That’s a little self-deprecating for one of the industry’s most ubiquitous voice actors, but hey – insecurity can crop up anywhere, and I think if Todd Howard himself looked me in the eyes and expressed his powerful judgment, I’d probably sway myself a little. Not to mention stepping into the shoes of such a beloved character. Baker simply says, “If at the end of the game you feel like I’m Indiana Jones, then I’ve done my job.”

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Much to Todd Howard’s chagrin, test audiences for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle loved Troy Baker as the lead: “They chose you every time.”

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