Karlach actor was cast in a game "bigger than Baldur's Gate 3," but it got axed

After two years of social media dominance, iconic memes, and a whole lot of smooching, the sun has finally set on Baldur's Gate 3. With the release of Patch 8, the RPG's swansong update, Faerun and its denizens close their eyes - the Netherbrain is gone, the city is saved, and, if you're me, you're cozying up with Shadowheart on a farm in the countryside. But for Samantha Béart, the actor behind everyone's favorite tiefling, Karlach, the work doesn't stop. After a year of relative silence, they're lending their rich tones to new videogames - Absolum, Fading Echo, and Tron: Catalyst being just some of "at least nine" fresh projects. In many ways, the shadow of Avernus will always linger, but they aren't letting that worry them - in fact, this next year is all about demonstrating their range.

I recently saw Béart at a live-action performance of Call of Cthulhu in Glasgow, despite not knowing anything about, well, Call of Cthulhu. Sitting amid a group of TTRPG veterans, including Mark Meer (Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect trilogy) and LA By Night's Josephine McAdam, myriad weird and wonderful accents were thrown back and forth, but Béart's soft Massachusettsan drawl took me by surprise. While in The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, their approach was, to borrow their words, "prim and proper," we've come to expect a certain rough and ready energy from Baldur's Gate 3's Karlach, so it was exciting to see something totally different from them.

"I'm supposed to be a resident of this town in Massachusetts, so I decided I was going to give it a go," they laugh. "No one cancelled me, and it's very easy to get cancelled, so that was good!" But, more seriously, I ask about the fear of being typecast - when you're known as Karlach, how do you not be Karlach? How often does a developer slap a picture of the character on the table and say 'do that, but for our game instead?'

"It did happen once," they recall. "But it's for a game that got canceled. I was actually quite happy about it from an artistic point of view, because that game could have been bigger than Baldur's Gate, and it felt like they went 'big and angry, that's what you do,' as if that's a type. So I'm kind of glad that I didn't get typecast. Some people only know me as Karlach, and that's all they care to know. Just the other day, I didn't get a role because they can't see me as anyone other than Karlach, and you think, 'look at my showreel; look at all of the other stuff I've done.'

"Karlach just kind of stuck. She's just kind of there, and that's incredible because she's just the best character ever, so no problems there. But, as you'll see with the projects I'm working on, I've got a good body of work. In Hob's Barrow, I'm playing it very prim and proper. You know, the RP-accented posho type, while with Absolum I'm playing Cider, a rogue-type character who's small and light and has great one-liners. Then there's Tron. Let's just say I might have been inspired by Michael Sheen in the movies. She's very fruity. Karlach had great one-liners too, though, so if having great one-liners is the typecast, I can live with that!

"You're going to see all of these different things I can do in these nine or so releases - more might be coming in," they tease. "There are different genres, studio sizes, gameplays, and character types. It's just me popping up in weird and strange ways doing things. If you're me, you like to disguise your real voice. I enjoy the challenge of disappearing. I'd say my strength is my versatility, and I'm excited to see how everything's received. It might be rejected - 'stick to Karlach!' - or it could be welcomed. I've been allowed to play in the space, and people have employed me for what I've offered rather than doing the same thing over and over again."

I ask if there's a sense of closure with Baldur's Gate Patch 8, which Larian has explicitly said marks the end of development on the RPG epic. "It's very odd to try and even quantify what's just happened in the last two years," they tell me. "It kind of hasn't stopped. I would say the audiences are growing. I was waiting for something to sweep along and take the baton from us so that we could go 'thank you, guys, see you on the next game,' but that hasn't happened. But it's a really lovely fandom and community. It's been rather gorgeous.

"It's the impact on people beyond what they've discovered about themselves, because roleplay is a great, safe place to discover stuff about yourself. [Then there's] the art that's come out of it, from cosplays to skits with our characters. There are Funko Pops coming out for [Baldur's Gate 3], and you go 'okay, this is where we sit in the culture now.' It's real lightning in a bottle stuff. Thanks, guys," they give me two thumbs up to the camera, "very cool!"

Béart is lending their voice to Fading Echo, a new "verbal puzzle game," as well as upcoming roguelike beat-em-up Absolum and, of course, Tron: Catalyst, which is out right now. "I appear halfway through, but it's great to play," they say with a smile. "It's so smooth, and it's what you expect - a bit of combat, some bikes, and a great, fun, innovative story. And, of course, the soundtrack slaps." You can try Tron: Catalyst's demo here.

In the meantime, I'm intrigued to see what comes next for Béart. They tease a narrative-heavy experience set to be revealed at Gamescom, calling it "a big one," then there are the (at least) five other upcoming games they're working on. Hopefully we'll hear more about them before long.