Wayne June, famed narrator of the Darkest Dungeon games, has died
Wayne June, the famed narrator of the Darkest Dungeon games, has died. June's passing was announced on Bluesky by Darkest Dungeon creative director Chris Bourassa, who described June as «ancestor, academic, artist, and friend.»
«Twelve years ago, Tyler [Red Hook co-founder Tyler Sigman] and I reached out to Wayne, humbly asking him to narrate our indie game's trailer,» Bourassa wrote. «Since those magical moments when we first paired his reading with the footage, it has been an incredible and fulfilling collaboration. Wayne's singular baritone and masterful cadence elevated everything he read. He was a consummate professional, and his love of his craft was an inspiration. His inimitable work is woven into the very fabric of our industry in a way that cannot be forgotten.
»It is one of my greatest honors to have written for him this past decade. Though I never got to shake his hand, I knew him to be a friend. Thank you, Wayne."
Bourassa told PC Gamer that he first encountered June's work through his readings of HP Lovecraft audiobooks, which he listened to regularly in the years leading up to Red Hook's founding. He once emailed June to express his appreciation, and June replied with a reading of Edgar Allen Poe.
«Chris lent me those CDs (yup, CDs) and I listened to them, really finding that Wayne's reading of Lovecraft brought the work to a whole new level,» Sigman wrote in a message to the Red Hook team, shared with PC Gamer. «The trailer called for a narrator, and one day it popped in Chris' head to reach out to Wayne and see if he wouldn't mind reading for a videogame trailer.
»I think more verbatim, it was, 'We should get somebody like Wayne June to narrate the trailer.' Then we thought—wait, Wayne June reads stuff for a living! Maybe he would do it! The work of course was so good that we decided to add a narrator to the game itself."
June's voice became a central part of Darkest Dungeon, and there was never any doubt that he'd return for Darkest Dungeon 2:
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