The Screen Actors Guild strikes affect 'Life is Strange: Before the Storm'

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) is currently 238 days into their strike, which video game voice actors are a part of to show solidarity with their union. Now, gamers have come to find out that the recently revealed 'Life Is Strange: Before the Storm' will be affected by this.

How it affects 'Life is Strange'

When 'Life is Strange: Before the Storm', a prequel to the 2015 game, was first shown at Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference fans noted that something was different. Ashly Burch, who voiced Chloe in the original game and won a 2015 Golden Joystick Award for her performance, will not be reprising her role in the prequel.

It is not currently not known if this will affect other characters from the first game that could also show up in the prequel.

Burch says that she was approached by publisher Square Enix about voicing Chole, but turned them down. In her place, non-union voice actor Rhianna DeVries will be voicing Chloe. Burch is a member of SAG-AFTRA and is showing solidarity with her union, as no voice actors have broken the strike. She acknowledged this on Twitter but did say that she is working on the project as a writer and consultant.

Why is the Guild striking?

In October 2015, the members of SAG-AFTRA voted to strike against 11 video game companies, as video game voice actors make up a large part of the union.

The companies actors are striking against include Activision Publishing, Disney Character Voices, Insomniac Games, Blindlight, Electronic Arts Productions, Interactive Associates, Corps of Discovery Films, Formosa Interactive, Take 2 Interactive Software, WB Games, and VoiceWorks Productions. This affects all games from these companies that went into production after February 17th, 2015.

The voice actors are striking in an effort to get residuals, which are post-release payments dependent on the sales of the video game they worked for. They are arguing that the strain placed on actors voices from long hours, as well as screaming and grunting, is impacting their well-being and their ability to continue working in the long run.

There is also the complaint that the desire for secrecy among publishers has led to gaming voice actors having little to no idea what they will be working on, impacting their ability to prepare for roles. Since the SAG-AFTRA strike started the union has come to agreements with more than thirty video game companies covering over forty different games.