Wayne June, the incomparable voice actor, narrator and gameplay commentator of the Darkest Dungeon series, known in-game as The Ancestor, has passed away. On behalf of developer Red Hook Studios, co-founder and creative director Chris Bourassa confirmed his passing and wrote: "It is one of my life's great honours to have written for him this past decade. Though I never got to shake his hand, I knew him to be a friend."

Suppose you've never played the punishing dark RPG series. In that case, it's hard to overstate just how dramatically June's atmospheric work elevates Red Hook's already excellent gameplay throughout a 40+ hour campaign, a truly essential component. As a reminder, we've added the original cinematic and our introduction to the iconic character above.

But its the dozens upon dozens of bleak incidental quips and lengthy story bits, cheering you on after a particularly satisfying critical hit, consistent across multiple games and DLC, that puts June's performance on an entirely different level.

Are you familiar with the Lovecraftian rantings and ramblings of The Ancestor, Darkest Dungeon's unsettling narrator? Could you even imagine the Darkest Dungeon series being voiced by anyone else? Banish the darkness back to the pit in the comments section below.

[source bsky.app]