343 explains ‘casting and technical reasons’ behind Halo Wars 2 actor replacements

343 Industries has explained the reasoning behind its recasting of two lead roles in upcoming RTS spin-off sequel Halo Wars 2.

Cutter and Anders were previously portrayed by Gregg Berger and Kim Mai Guest in Ensemble Studio’s 2009 predecessor to Creative Assembly’s upcoming sequel.

In Halo Wars 2, the characters will instead be performed by Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Gideon Emery and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s Faye Kingslee, respectively.

343 said that the actors’ replacement was made “for both casting and technical reasons”, citing the growing use of performance capture as a key factor.

“The first Halo Wars game, for all its glitteringly wondrous CG, contained characters that [trailer production studio] Blur essentially ‘made up,’” it explained. “They were effectively ‘hand-drawn’ amalgams of character, rigging and aesthetics.

“Those characters were created in 2008, using 2007 tech and they looked fantastic at the time. But since then, the industry has made geometric leaps forward in technique and technology and the trend, rightfully, has been towards proper facial and performance capture.

“The end result is much better immersion in the story and far more believable ‘people’ because they are people – recordings of the performance rather than a simulation or cartoon of it.”