The Destiny 2 community has been mourning the loss of John Wick and The Wire actor Lance Reddick along with everyone else following his recent death. But Bungie confirms the voice behind lead character Commander Zavala still has a few performances left to come in the game.
“As an actor, musician, gamer, and family man, the passion Lance brought to the things he loved was reflected in the eyes and hearts of all who loved him,” Bungie wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “For now, we will honor his presence through his performances yet to come in the game, and in the memories that will last us a lifetime.”
It’s not clear how much Reddick recorded for the game prior to his untimely passing. It’s possible his voice work for Zavala will conclude at the end of the current Season of Defiance or that his performances in the upcoming Season of the Deep and beyond were already completed. Destiny 2's story moves at a snail’s pace, and even a few dozen lines can go a long way in the game.
Reddick voiced Zavala for nearly 10 years, providing the King Arthur of Destiny 2's Camelot both a stern moral center and rueful humanity. In addition to paying their respects to the actor where his NPC appears in the game’s social hub area, fans have also been wondering how Bungie will conclude his sweeping narrative arc.
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The last time a core character died in-game, it was the exo hunter Cayde-6 played by Nathan Fillion. The plot point proved a major catalyst for events to come in Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion and fit naturally into the live service game’s evolution. It’s not clear if Bungie was planning a similar eventual fate for Reddick’s Zavala, who now exists in a much more story-centric version of Destiny 2 where characters’ emotional development are the focal point of each season. While Cayde-6 was a beloved video game character, losing Zavala is more akin to a hit TV show having to write off one of its main characters.
Key characters have been recast in the past, most notably the warlock Ikora Rey who was previously voiced by Gina Torres (Firefly) and has since been replaced by Mara Junot (Fireheart). It seems hard to imagine doing that with Zavala at this point, however, and there were previous hints that the character might not survive the game’s coming war with The Darkness. We’ll better know how Bungie decides to wrap up Reddick’s legacy later this year as Destiny 2's Final Shape expansion approaches.