Why Jonesy From Fortnite Sounds So Familiar

If you tuned in for the Fortnite: Chapter 2 – Season 2 live event, congratulations on making it through the space-warping, time-bending insanity with your brain intact. The event answered several questions but raised so many more. Where is the mysterious office that participants were teleported to located? Why is the Storm now replaced with an evil tidal wave? Just who is Agent Jonesy, and why does he sound so familiar? We can't answer most of those questions, but we can answer that last one.

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Since Jonesy has been with Fortnite since its inception, Epic Games wanted to give the prototypical character skin one of the best voices around. But who to choose? Journalist Ben Walker contacted Epic and confirmed that your ears did not deceive you. The voice that escaped Agent Jonesy/John Jones' lips belonged to none other than Troy Baker, one of the more prolific voice actors in gaming.

An anime-ted beginning

Like many voice actors, Troy Baker started in anime. To say he got around would be an understatement since he bagged roles such as Gin from Detective Conan, Frank Archer in Fullmetal Alchemist, and multiple voices in Baki the Grappler.

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As time went on, Baker snagged bigger and better cartoon roles. Eventually, he became the official voice of Hawkeye in Marvel animated projects such as Avengers Assemble and Ultimate Spider-Man. Baker also returned for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, this time as the much more important player Greed. Plus, he became DC Entertainment's go-to voice for Batman and The Joker when Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill were unavailable. Baker played The Joker in Batman: Assault on Arkham (which is the true Suicide Squad movie, FYI) and in the Batman Unlimited franchise. However, he also voiced Batman in countless Lego direct-to-dvd movies. But, Baker's greatest superhero achievement was voicing both Batman and The Joker in Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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While Baker continued to do the occasional cartoon character throughout his career, he slowly left his origins behind and made his way towards his true calling: video game voice acting.

One of the biggest names in the industry

Much like his cartoon voice origins, Troy Baker started small in the world of video games. One of his first roles was the uncredited voice of Eikichi Mishina in Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and things picked up from there. Baker's first major breakthrough was as Sgt. Matt Baker in the Brother in Arms franchise.

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Later, Baker nailed more and more leading roles, such as Yuri Lowell in Tales of Vesperia, Snow Villiers in the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy — as well as World of Final Fantasy and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT — and Batman in the Batman Telltale Games franchise. However, Baker's biggest roles have to be Joel from The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part 2, as well as Samuel Drake in Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. In the latter title, he even got to work with fellow voice acting behemoth Nolan North.

And yes, before you ask, Baker eventually returned to the Persona franchise, this time as Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4. But he was uncredited then, as well. If you can't get enough Baker, though, don't worry because you'll get all you want when Marvel's Avengers launches in Fall 2020. He's playing Bruce Banner, also known as The Hulk.

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