David Hayter Voices Snake in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Voice actor and screenwriter David Hayter will reprise his famous role as Solid Snake in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it has recently been revealed.

In an interview with GameInformer, the game’s localisation manager, Nate Bihldorff was asked about who would be voicing the infamous videogame operative, to which he simply responded, “David Hayter”. Hayter then backed up this statement on Twitter, saying “Ok… yes, it’s me”.

Ok…

Yes, it’s me. #SuperSmashBros https://t.co/m7l9ANmPDc

— David Hayter (@DavidBHayter) June 12, 2018

He then retweeted an IGN article announcing the news, commenting, “Toldja”.

Toldja. https://t.co/A3jTsOkpCK

— David Hayter (@DavidBHayter) June 12, 2018

In the aforementioned GameInformer interview, Bihldorff was asked whether Hayter would be recording new dialogue for Snake for the game or whether they would simply reuse the lines from 2008’s Super Smash Bros. Brawl. He responded, “I don’t have the details on that”. When he and Product Marketing Manager for Nintendo America Bill Bill Trinen were asked about whether the grizzly-voiced hero would have lines of dialogue commenting on the other fighters in the game (as he did in Brawl), Trinen laughed,  saying he “forgot about those” with Bihldorff remarking that he “should remember those, because [he] was at those recording sessions and that was a lot of recording”.

David Hayter hasn’t voiced Solid Snake in a videogame since 2008 with Brawl and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. However, he did voice the character once again in a humorous commercial for Ford in 2016. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be the first time Hayter has played (or been heard as) Snake in a videogame in ten years.

Hayter had previously been replaced in the role by Hollywood actor Keith Sutherland in 2015’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The game’s director, Hideo Kojima, wanted an actor who could “have a more subdued performance expressed through subtle facial movements and tone of voice rather than words” (Sutherland also performed motion capture for the role). Kojima also felt he “needed someone who could genuinely convey both the facial and vocal qualities of a man in his late 40s”.

New gameplay for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was announced at this year’s E3 and will be released on December 7th 2018 for the Nintendo Switch.

Are you looking forward to hearing the original voice of Snake? Let us know in the comments!

Nathan Franklin

A writer who loves any medium that can take him away from the real world. He loves gaming, science fiction, philosophical novels and even the odd guilty-pleasure trash TV Drama.