Starfield‘s cast of sidekicks includes cowboy dad Sam Coe voiced by Elias Toufexis, also known as the voice of Adam Jensen in Deus Exes Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. This wasn’t the role Toufexis was originally hired for, however. The actor revealed that he and fellow voice actress Cissy Jones, who voices romanceable party member Andreja, were originally hired to voice Starfield’s protagonist.

“Yeah it’s true. [Cissy Jones] and I were originally the player voices in Starfield. We worked for months,” Toufexis shared via X (formerly Twitter). “When they decided the player should be voiceless they gave Cissy and me Andreja and Sam Coe.

“Games never do this. Once you’re out you’re out. Good on Bethesda.”

In a followup tweet, Toufexis said that he’s still the voice of “player efforts” – the huh, hup, ugh grunts the player makes when jumping around. “So when you’re jumping around with Sam, both are making the same noises.”

“I will always work with Bethesda because of this,” concluded Toufexis. “Top tier respect.”

Most of Bethesda’s games have silent protagonists, but the studio introduced a voice for Fallout 4 to a mixed response. Starfield design director Emil Pagliarulo explained in an interview with Polygon earlier this year that response “played into” the decision to return to silence in Starfield, but that it was also a matter of not wanting the player to feel like too-specific a person.

Well, turns out the too-specific person was Adam Jensen (if you chose a male protagonist).

In other news, it’s been months and I still mix up Sam Coe’s name with olympic medallist Seb Coe every time.