Another Borderlands Voice Actor Won’t Be Returning for 3
In addition to the recent back and forth between Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford and prolific voice actor Troy Baker regarding his not being asked to reprise his role as Rhys in the upcoming Borderlands 3, another of the game’s most well known and beloved voices won’t be returning on account of a pay dispute.
Claptrap voice actor David Eddings has brought the character to life since the series began back in 2009, even voicing the irritating little robot in Telltale’s Tales From the Borderlands spinoff. But when a fan asked him on Twitter if he would be returning as the character in the upcoming sequel, Eddings says that after he “insisted on getting paid” for his work, the developer suddenly “couldn’t afford” to pay him. He had taken on the role during his time as an executive at Gearbox and had apparently taken on the role of Claptrap with no extra compensation. Eddings left Gearbox to work for Rooster Teeth back in 2017.
No. For the first time, I insisted on getting paid for my performance and all of a sudden they couldn’t afford me. Now I’m not telling them how to run their business but maybe next time they should put the $12M payment from 2K in the Gearbox bank account instead. Just sayin’…
— David Eddings (@davideddings) May 2, 2019
Gearbox did confirm the situation to IGN, stating: “Gearbox works to treat and compensate all voice actors at industry standards. We offer the opportunity for salaried employees to voice characters in the game, but is not a mandatory responsibility to their job requirements. In this particular case, now that he was no longer an employee, we offered him an industry standard rate, but were not able to reach an agreement. We are confident and happy with Jim Foronda as the voice of Claptrap, and we are confident our fans will be too.”
Taking over Claptrap voicing duties will be Peter Foronda, who has voiced characters in the series before, namely Dahl, of the Dahl Corporation.
In other recent Borderlands news, you can take a look at how the new game’s Calypso Twins built up their cult following here, and apparently, the game’s main story will take around 30 hours to complete. Borderlands 3 drops this September 13th for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Let us know what you think of all the drama in the comments!