You probably won’t find many names in video game voice acting who have had the surge of success and recognizability Ben Starr and Neil Newbon have had since 2023. Starr, who played Clive in Final Fantasy XVI and Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Newbon, best known for his performance as Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, have become some of the most prominent voices and faces in the field, and after co-starring in the booth in games like Date Everything and Warframe, the two are now acting opposite each other in a live-action psychological horror game called Dead Take from the studio behind Tales of Kenzera: Zau.
Dead Take is set in a seemingly abandoned Hollywood mansion, where the player’s friend went missing after a party. But this isn’t just any old mansion. Something terrible happened here, and the only way to find out more is to solve escape-room-style puzzles and sift through videos and footage you find within its walls. As you make your way through the mansion, you’ll find videos of actors Vinny Monroe (Starr) and Chase Lowry (Newbon), who are both shown portraying a character named Willie in the footage. These videos will be broken up and out of order, so a key part of solving the game’s many mysteries is finding them on flash drives throughout the mansion and splicing them together. Surgent Studios founder Abubakar Salim says he wrote the roles with Starr and Newbon in mind.
It all sounds spooky, and both Newbon and Starr are giving unnerving performances in the clips we see of them in the first trailer. The game is coming to Steam and is available to wishlist now. We don’t have a release date, though, beyond Surgent Studios saying the game is coming “soon.”