With the recent release of the final Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom trailer, fans were excited to learn that Ganondorf was announced to come back to the game. With this announcement came the reveal of the person set to voice him in the upcoming game, which will be Matthew Mercer, as reported by NintendoLife. In a tweet made shortly after the trailer was announced, Mercer officially revealed that he would be voicing Ganondorf in the upcoming game, revealing his excitement for the project.
I just got the go-ahead from Nintendo, so I can FINALLY announce my absolute pleasure to be voicing Ganondorf in the Legend of #Zelda : #TearsoftheKingdom.
An immense honor that I have thrown myself into doing justice. pic.twitter.com/GDtoWRUHDx
— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) April 14, 2023
Mercer is a veteran voice actor, who has worked on a variety of projects in the past spanning many different genres according to Giantbomb. Many know him as a main member of Critical Role, a Dungeons and Dragons show played out for thousands of online viewers, that eventually grew enough of a following to sponsor two seasons of the popular Amazon Prime animated series The Legend of Vox Machina, with a third reportedly in the works. Beyond these accomplishments, many others know him for his video game voices such as McCree in Overwatch and Leon S. Kennedy in Resident Evil 6 and the voices he has done for anime characters such as Levi in Attack on Titan, and Hit from Dragon Ball Super, among dozens of others.
Ganondorf has had many voice actors in the past, with behindthevoiceactors claiming that up to nine different people have voiced the Nintendo villain. The most common actors to have played Ganondorf in the past have been Hironori Miyata and Takashi Nagasako, who have each played Ganondorf on multiple occasions. Nagasako played Ganondorf most recently for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, however he had not played the villain over the previous four iterations of Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros. games, which makes the voice actor switch slightly less surprising. Mercer is a strong choice to follow up Nagasako due to his extensive resume as a voice actor, so many will be eager to hear his take on Ganon.
Fans can eagerly anticipate hearing Mercer play the iconic villain in the upcoming Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which will be coming out May 12, 2023.