Sorry, Not Sorry
Gaming’s best climatologist, Mei has one of the most endearing voice lines in Overwatch, and it was a recording booth accident. During the first Tribeca Games Festival this weekend, the game’s senior game designer Michael Chu said Mei’s series of apologies was his favorite voice line in the game when asked. He explained that Zhang Yu, the voice actor for the upbeat scientist, apologized in the recording booth and Chu wisely jumped on saving that recording.
“The actress just made a mistake and was saying ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’” Chu explained. “And I turned to the engineer and asked, ‘Did you get that?’ And he was like, ‘Yep,’ and I was like, ‘Send that to me.’”
Despite being unscripted, the accidental line really fits the Overwatch heroine as it embodies her kind-hearted nature and strength too. Thus, Mei players can choose to drop the line, ironically or intentionally, after thwarting the opposing team’s efforts with a well-placed Ice Wall.
In the Uncharted series, one of Nathan Drake’s fan-favorite line was improvised too as the line, “Kitty got wet!” was inspired by a rather sweet story of the voice actor, Nolan North, hearing the phrase from his son. This catching phrase appears in different forms throughout the series.
Thus, unscripted voice actor moments like these can sometimes strike fandom gold.