Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, the latest DLC for From Software’s award-winning RPG, is still making waves in the gaming industry. There are several NPCs that players can meet and even summon during tough boss fights. One NPC in particular, Igon, managed to capture the hearts of many players who quickly turned him into an icon and arguably the best NPC in the entire game. Igon’s voice actor, Richard Lintern, wasn’t even aware of the character’s popularity online until now.
Players can discover Igon in Shadow of the Erdtree laying on the ground and cursing someone (or something) called Bayle. At this point, you might ignore the mad screaming man on the floor and continue on your journey. It’s only once you reach the Jagged Peak that Igon’s questline finally makes sense: he’s hunting down Bayle the Dread, a menacing dragon. Summoning Igon during that boss fight rewards players with some of the most memorable dialogue ever scripted in a From Software game.
“CURSE YOU, BAYLE!” he monologues. “I hereby vow! You will rue this day! Behold, a true drake warrior! And I, Igon! Your fears made flesh! Solid of scale you might be, foul dragon, but I will riddle with holes your rotten hide! With a hail of harpoons! With every last drop of my being!”
Speaking to IGN in a recent interview, Igon’s voice actor Richard Lintern said that he wasn’t aware of how popular the character had become online, also noting how he had never done voice acting work for video games but appreciated the vast reach of the medium in the world.
“I had never engaged, or been used, or tried to be used, or even thought of myself as a possibility for use in voice work in the gaming world. And once you open that door, it’s been a real revelation for me, actually. I’ve been astonished about how worldwide it is, how enormous it is. I had kind of imagined that the world of TV and film and theater was the largest grossing, or most important, or whatever. And my eyes have been opened, not even by the work on Elden Ring, but by the response to it, and the scope of the reach, and the contact that these stories, these worlds have with people all over the world has been a real revelation for me, and really, really interesting.”
After being shown one of many memes of Igon that are circulating the internet, Lintern was told players had made connections between Igon and Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. He had a surprisingly poetic response:
“A quest of the soul, a quest of morality, and strength, and pain, and terror, and doom. And an enemy that is so huge that you can’t even comprehend it, but for some reason, the bravery of the individual comes through and manages to triumph over it.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Lintern also reflects on his experience recording dialogue for Igon and working with director Hidetaka Miyazaki – a process that, despite Igon only having a few lines of dialogue in the game, took hours to record.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Make sure you also check out our ranking of all the remembrance bosses in the DLC from worst to best.
Source: IGN
Feature image captured by TheNerdlit
