Jonathan Blow’s Order of the Sinking Star Names Its Voice Cast. Only Two Languages Get to Hear It

Jonathan Blow’s first game since The Witness has a voice cast, and it’s a big one. Emily O’Brien, Liam O’Brien, Darin De Paul, Anjali Bhimani, Erica Luttrell and Matthew Waterson lead Order of the Sinking Star, which launches October 8. The catch for everyone outside two markets: the game’s store page lists full audio in only English and Simplified Chinese.

Arc Games and Thekla, Blow’s studio, revealed the cast on October 1 with a trailer that introduces the game’s heroes one by one. Emily O’Brien plays The Queen, Liam O’Brien The Warrior, Darin De Paul The Wizard, Anjali Bhimani The Bard, Erica Luttrell The Sailor and Matthew Waterson The Druid. Blow himself makes what the publisher calls “a special appearance.” The puzzle adventure arrives on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and PC through Steam.

The official cast trailer, from the game’s own YouTube channel, shows off the core heroes and the actors behind them:

From “just your shadow” to a full cast

That’s a real change for Blow. Braid, in 2008, told its story in text passages scattered through its levels. The Witness, in 2016, left players alone on an island. In an interview with DualShockers in August, Blow put it plainly: in The Witness, “there weren’t really characters in that game at all. There’s just your shadow as you walk around.”

Image: Thekla, Inc. and Arc Games

This time he wanted characters, and he wanted them light. “At one point, I wanted there to be a bunch of cutscenes in this game, but in retrospect, I’m glad we didn’t do that because I think what we’re doing is lighter weight,” he told DualShockers. “It’s like a little dusting of story on each level, and part of the reason that felt good to me is that a lot of this game is about characters and their abilities and stuff like that, especially the heroes.”

He has never hidden his doubts about story in games. “I’ve never been a fan of what most games do with respect to story,” he told PCGamesN last December. “Story and player choice are fighting with each other all the time. You either negate player choice, or you make story irrelevant.” PCGamesN described the result as storytelling that “unfolds in a breadcrumb fashion through character anecdotes and audio logs.” For a cast, that means short, sharp scenes and a lot of personality packed into very little time.

The demo nobody credited

Players have been hearing these voices for months without knowing whose they were. When a demo appeared in June, Noam Blum posted on X: “Jonathan Blow’s new game, Order of the Sinking Star, has a demo out and it’s pretty cool. Also I haven’t seen anyone online discuss the voice cast. Pretty sure I can hear Laura Bailey and Liam O’Brien in there but they aren’t credited anywhere online…”

He was half right, on the public record at least. Liam O’Brien is now confirmed as The Warrior. Laura Bailey isn’t on the list Arc Games released, though that list ends with “and more,” so the full credits will have to wait for launch.

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It’s a familiar story for game actors. A performance can be out in the world for months, in a trailer or a demo, before anyone is allowed to say who gave it. Fans who recognise a voice by ear do a lot of the early crediting, and they don’t always get it right. FullCleared notes that when the game’s Explore the Realm trailer arrived the week before, Arc said the full lineup would come closer to launch. It did, seven days out.

The rest of the call sheet

The supporting cast is deep, and most of it comes from games and animation. Jamieson K. Price plays Borraidus. Ray Chase, whose credits include Final Fantasy XV and Jujutsu Kaisen, plays The Director-On-Sabbatical. Anjali Bhimani doubles up, voicing both The Bard and The Surveyor. Blow’s own role is listed as “N/A (it’s a surprise!).”

Not every playable hero has been matched to a voice in the coverage so far. Spanish site Nintendúo pointed out that the thief and the talking boat weren’t in the headline list, though the full cast sheet that Worthplaying published gives The Thief to Sabrina Fest. Nintendúo also asked the question plenty of players are asking: “Was a cast like this needed for a puzzle game? Maybe not, but with the father of Braid at the helm, every detail usually has its reason.”

Full audio in two languages

The Steam store page lists eleven languages for the interface and subtitles, and marks just two with full audio support: English and Simplified Chinese. Steam also lists Gamirror Games alongside Arc Games as a publisher. Everyone playing in the other nine will read the heroes, not hear them in their own language.

For dubbing actors in Spain and Latin America, that’s a familiar gap. Independent and mid-sized games often stop at subtitles, and a puzzle game with “a little dusting of story” is an easy place to draw that line. Latin American Spanish doesn’t appear on the list at all; the Spanish option is listed as Spanish from Spain.

It also says something about where voice money goes on a game like this. The publisher hired well-known game actors for English, lists full Chinese audio as well, and lists no other voiced languages. For actors in the markets that missed out, the English cast will be the voices their players know these heroes by.

How much there is to hear

The store page promises “more than one thousand hand-crafted puzzles” across four worlds that eventually collide. Blow has said the real count is above 1,400, and that the game can take up to 250 hours at a normal pace and more than 500 to solve everything. Players don’t have to finish every puzzle to reach the end of the story.

That’s a lot of time to spend with a small group of voices, and every one of the leads has a long list of game credits behind them. The heroes will be talking to players for a very long time. On October 8, everyone gets to find out who else is in there.

Sources: Worthplaying, Arc Games cast announcement and full cast list (October 1, 2026); FullCleared (October 1, 2026); Nintendúo (October 1, 2026); Steam store page for Order of the Sinking Star; DualShockers interview with Jonathan Blow (August 18, 2026); PCGamesN interview with Jonathan Blow (December 12, 2025); Noam Blum on X (June 18, 2026); Wikipedia, Order of the Sinking Star. Quotations from Spanish sources are translated by Voice Over Herald. Images: Thekla, Inc. and Arc Games.

Lee este artículo en español: Order of the Sinking Star, de Jonathan Blow, revela su reparto de voces. Solo dos idiomas podrán escucharlo

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