Breath of the Wild: The Story of Patricia Summersett, the Voice of Zelda
Channel: Video Game Story Time
Date: 2018-06-01

Patricia Summersett is the voice of Princess Zelda in the seminal Switch classic, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

This is an important role - arguable, the most crucial voice role in the history of Nintendo video games. For the first time, players have been given the opportunity to form a direct emotional connection to the titular Princess Zelda, based not just on seeing her, but hearing her voice.

(Well, Western audiences, that is. Zelda has spoken Japanese in plenty of games, such as Tetra's Trackers, which never made it to English-speaking countries because of the challenges of translation.)

(The above point only stands if you accept that Tetra is actually Zelda. That's debatable.)

Luckily, Patricia Summersett was more than prepared to take on the role. Her journey as a video game voice actor was very different to most - it started with ice skating, and went via classical training at some of the most prestigious drama schools in the world.

This video was made possible thanks to the fantastic Girls on Games podcast, who conducted two separate interviews with Patricia (one of which also featured Evie Frye voice actor Victoria Atkin). If you want to learn more about Patricia Summersett's background and how she got the job of playing Princess Zelda, or if you want more behind-the-scenes info on game development, you should definitely check out the podcast!

Sources:
http://www.girlsongames.ca/2017/04/10/gogcast-107-patricia-summersett/
http://www.girlsongames.ca/2018/04/16/gogcast-156-patricia-summersett-and-victoria-atkin/156_collage/

Lots of love,
BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotorcomics)

Music: Garden Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/