Everywhere I look I can only find information regarding Bateson's drop from his role.(If you are not familar with who David Bateson is he's been the model and voice actor for 47 for every game in the series, of course most who play won't notice because it wasn't till the third game Contracts where 47 would talk regularly)But I remember (and I say this cause no one seems to ever mention it) that real early on when it was still called Hitman 5, that Bateson said he was working on it. It wasn't until some time after they named it Absolution that they kicked him out after all his work for the series.

And I think this screen shot proves it.

One of the earliest pieces to come out for Absolution showed 47 appearing like the usual. He looks very much if not just like he did in Blood Money and the Bateson look can clearly be seen. Compared to the current appearance of 47 where it still sort of resembles his old look but you can clearly tell they tweaked him to get away from having him look too much lik Bateson.

So with this in mind I'm gunna say that I with 99.9% of assurance I garuntee that sometime after Absolution's launch that some people will have dug through the files and find voice clips from Bateson. Because even though they don't want to admit it I bet he did early voicework for Absolution before he got fucked. And if this is true why would they drop him after all ready starting work on another title? Which further pushes my endearing question

Sorry I go off into a big rant

"WHY!?" here you got a veteran voice actor, who knows what he is doing, who is familar with the character, who's been notonly been the voice but the model as well. So why after all these years and work he has put into the series helping them does he get turned down and isolated off !?It's fuckin stupid if I was Bateson I'd be fuckin pissed, "all that time and those fuckers drop me?"They are lucky he is so profesional. All I'm saying is how could they drop such a strong/important asset just like that? What were they thinking? Not saying I won't pick up the game or nothing this hasn't anything to do with the game itself just a really dumb move by IO in my opinion. I really wish they'd shed some more light on this situation cause I think if this isn't gunna be the last Hitman game that Bateson won't ever voice 47 again. Which sucks hairy liver spotted balls.

Similar to the Ironside situation but from what I've read it doesn't seem like Ubisoft just stopped contacting Ironside. They just picked a new guy.

I sent him an email about any possible preliminary voice work on Absolution, but I doubt he'll respond until after the game comes out for obvious legal reasons.

@AssInAss:Cool and you're right, stupid contracts.And I do remember him saying he can't say nothing cause he is under contract.Damn I can't wait till he can actually talk because kicking a good man down like that is un-acceptable.

Money. That's why.

I just find it... well I can't think of a good word, that both Sam Fisher and Agent 47 are getting new voices.

I have zero attachment to a voice you only hear about three times in each game. Also, maybe he was unavailable to do performance capture?(or like Ironside, physically unable to.)

@Agent47: I'd guess they replaced him because they've moved to using Hollywood actors and full performance capture. The casting people there probably thought he was a nobody and not worth the effort of transporting to the states, and IO presumably agreed.

Obviously there was a reason... and no, they will not elaborate on it.

@Dallas_Raines said:

you only hear about three times in each game.

This is completely inaccurate. He has a ton of voice acting, even in the early games. Anyone who says that they don't care about voice acting has likely not played more than one Hitman game, so they haven't spent enough time with the character. The new voice actor sounds completely bland compared to the old one. It was completely unnecessary to change it, considering Bateson was very willing to work on the fifth game.

@Agent47 There is actually a lot of voice acting in the early games. You should edit your post to explain that. Here are some but not nearly all of the cutscenes from contracts.Hitman 2 cutscenes.

@rebgav said:

Who is playing 47 now?

Exactly.

...that hasn't been revealed yet, has it? I'd guess it's someone with a lot of TV / Film credits, since the supporting cast include people from Dexter, Lost, 24, Sin City, etc.

Call me crazy, but I'd love to see Timothy Olyphant be the VA for 47. He was one of the only bright spots in that movie. And he just plain rocks.

@Bane122 said:

Call me crazy, but I'd love to see Timothy Olyphant be the VA for 47. He was one of the only bright spots in that movie. And he just plain rocks.

You're definitely crazy.

@Bane122:Not hatin on Timothy or nothing but he just doesn't fit the 47 character he's too much of a pretty boy.I would rather have Jason Staham 47 long before a Timothy Olyphant one.

I'm guessing it had something to do with pay, or it had something to do with Bateson not giving 47 the reads the developers wanted. He's not a great actor. He's decent, but he's not great. It's quite possible that the quality of VO he was delivering for Absolution just wasn't up to par with what IO wanted. Especially after both Kane & Lynch games. Say what you want about the overall quality of those titles, but the VO was pitch-perfect.

I'm pretty sure there's no "performance capture" in the new Hitman.
 
It's Hitman not Enslaved.

@rebgav said:

@BlackLagoon said:

@rebgav said:

Who is playing 47 now?

Exactly.

...that hasn't been revealed yet, has it? I'd guess it's someone with a lot of TV / Film credits, since the supporting cast include people from Dexter, Lost, 24, Sin City, etc.

No, I don't think it's been revealed. I'd guess it's someone who can do a reasonable impression of the last guy for a lot less money.

According to IMDB (so, you know, imdb) the supporting cast is made up of Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine and a bunch of low-level tv actors. If they'd hired a name for 47 they would have led with that, you'd think. So far, the voice cast looks like a support group for actors with too much free time, so I don't know why anyone would think that Bateson was replaced with someone more well-known.

There is already a clip of the new voice actor, and its not anywhere near as cool as the original work by Bateson.

@august said:

I'm pretty sure there's no "performance capture" in the new Hitman. It's Hitman not Enslaved.

derp derp derp

http://www.planetxbox360.com/article_13981/Hitman_Absolution_to_Use_Performance_Capture_Technology

IO Interactive is taking the necessary steps to ensure that Hitman Absolution looks as real as possible with the use of high tech performance capturing.

The company used Giant Studios to capture each Hollywood cast members’ facial and performance movements for the title. Giant Studios is famous for being the studio used for James Cameron’s Avatar.

IO Interactive billed actors Keith Caradine (Cowboys and Aliens) and Marsha Thomason (White Collar) to play the roles of the villainous Blake Dexter and sexy handler Diana Burnwood.

"We had actors like Marsha and Keith come in and do full-body acting with facial and voice being captured simultaneously in scenes," said Tore Blystad, game director at IO Interactive. "Some of these scenes were very complex with all kinds of props and interactions amongst the actors."

@rebgav said:

No, I don't think it's been revealed. I'd guess it's someone who can do a reasonable impression of the last guy for a lot less money.

According to IMDB (so, you know, imdb) the supporting cast is made up of Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine and a bunch of low-level tv actors. If they'd hired a name for 47 they would have led with that, you'd think. So far, the voice cast looks like a support group for actors with too much free time, so I don't know why anyone would think that Bateson was replaced with someone more well-known.

Sorry, but actors do not get paid based on your emotional attachment to their characters. Hollywood actors are the best paid ones in the industry, and Bateson got the role of 47 because IO chose the cheaper option of rounding up whatever English speaking actors they could find in Copenhagen and producing the voice acting themselves. David probably got a pay bump to Screen Actors Guild video game minimum when the voice acting moved to Los Angeles with Blood Money, but with Absolution being performance capture the minimum will undoubtedly be much higher, never mind the extra pay the new guy will be able to negotiate above that if he's a "name" actor.

As for the "supporting cast", I was thinking of the three officially announced so far - Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine and Marsha Thomason, all established actors with big credits. I expect 47's actor to be in line with them, most likely he's just not been announced because they don't want to draw attention to the "47 actor replaced" fan rage until they're ready to counter it with a big PR push near launch.

And the actors on IMDB seem mostly people who did incidental characters and background voices. They were most likely cast and recorded separately, and are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion.

It's stupid, really, but very likely comes down to money. And I read somewhere that Bateson actually is upset, but just isn't making a huge deal out of it. Apparently he attempted to contact IO but they wouldn't respond.

@Agent47 said:

Similar to the Ironside situation but from what I've read it doesn't seem like Ubisoft just stopped contacting Ironside. They just picked a new guy.

Actually, not quite true. I believe that Ironside did know, and willingly passed up the role. Ubisoft said it's because he's getting too old to continue doing the mocap, and something about this new guy looking more like Fisher? I dunno. It's pretty stupid, too, but I kind of stopped caring about that situation altogether.

It could have been a combination of scheduling, money, and the use of mocap. On the part of Micheal Ironside though it could be because he wasn't capable of doing performance capture and also that his voice sounded a lot more...."drunk" now. I noticed that he was eating his words more often during conviction and that drunk micheal ironside impersonation from jeff kept popping up in my head everytime he stared talking. Also it could have also been cheaper to hire someone who can do performance capture instead of having mo cap with a different actor while keeping ironside. With Bateson however we wont know for sure.