Two Left Sticks recently got a chance to interview actor Ruffin Prentiss, playing the role of Marcus Holloway the Watch Dogs 2 protagonist. In the interview, Ruffin talked about how a regular actor ends up with a video game gig and that too one of Ubisoft’s strongest new IPs.
According to Ruffin, playing the role of Watch Dogs 2 protagonist Marcus Holloway wasn’t much different from a TV role, even the audition was similar and he didn’t just have to do voice over work.
The audition was shrouded in secrecy and he just knew that he was doing an in-person audition for a game without knowing the real name of the project or his own character.
Since the role demanded more than just voice over work, Ruffin actually portrayed Marcus Holloway in flesh and blood too through the use of a mocap suit. Even though he was new to entire game development process, he still seemed to enjoy it.
I view mocap as the perfect mix between theater and television work. You get the full range of your imagination similar to working on stage but you also have cameras following you and capturing the performance.
He did however have issues with the facial cameras according to him, although it is understandable given how close they are to the face.
Ruffin wasn’t the only actor working on Watch Dogs 2 as other characters in the game were also created through motion capture and according to him, that was the best part of the project for him as he got to interact with other people.
Perhaps the biggest criticism which the original Watch Dogs faced was that the protagonist Aiden Pearce was too dull and the game world too dark. Ubisoft sought to fix that issue with San Francisco and its vibrant life alongside a younger generation of in-game characters.
Watch Dogs 2 is scheduled to release on PS4 and Xbox One on 15th November while the PC version has been delayed to 29th November. Ubisoft also recently shared system requirements for the PC version.
