Palo Verde grad finds his groove in voice acting
When actor and former Las Vegas resident Ray Chase attended Becker Middle School, band was his focus. But, thanks to a suggestion from his mom, by the time he attended Palo Verde High School, he found a new love.
“I got into symphonic band, which took up a separate period so I had an extra elective,” Chase said. “I was going to do band again, but my mom said that was really dumb, so I picked theater and I absolutely fell in love with it.”
Chase has made a career in acting and was recently announced as one of the lead roles in an update of “NieR Replicant,” due out on April 23. The game is an update to “NieR Replicant,” which was previously only released in Japan.
“It was an interesting character,” Chase aid. “We worked on it for a year, maybe a year and a half. It was a pretty long recording process, and soon people will be able to play the game and decide which version they like. I can’t say too many things. It looks like Square Enix is keeping some of the surprises close to the vest.”
The part is the latest of a string of prominent roles in blockbusters games, which have included performances in “Telltale’s The Walking Dead” and “NieR: Automata.”
“It’s been a long, long road,” Chase said. “There was a good five or six years of doing audio books, a lot of Russian iPhone apps and all sorts of crazy stuff.”
Luckily, Chase began to land roles in various video games, animes and TV shows.
He also secured one of his biggest video game roles to date — playing the lead character, Noctis, in “Final Fantasy XV.”
“One of the great things about working on that game was everything we recorded was in order,” Chase said. “So, it was very easy to come up with a character arc because you really see how Noctis changes over time. Unlike a lot of video game protagonists, he really changes. It tells a whole, complete story. It was an absolute luxury.”
Chase also played Marlon in the final season of “Telltale’s The Walking Dead.”
“I recorded it in one 13-hour day,” Chase said. “It was an absolutely insane session. It was a crazy emotional journey.”
Now, Chase is ready to introduce gamers to another memorable character and to continue his gaming journey.
“With “NieR: Automata,” we didn’t know it was going to be as much of a success as it was,” Chase said. “We didn’t know if people were going to pay attention. This one, we know that everyone is paying attention.”
Contact Lukas Eggen at leggen@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Follow @lukaseggen on Twitter.