Hayden Panettiere, Until Dawn And Kingdom Hearts Star, Dead At 36

Hayden Panettiere, who began her career as a child actress on soap operas before moving on to a variety of film and television roles, has passed away. News broke late Sunday night that Panettiere was found unresponsive and subsequently pronounced dead by responding medical professionals. No cause of death has been released at the time of this writing. She was 36 years old.

While most obits mention Panettiere's roles in the TV shows "Nashville" and "Heroes," as well as movies like "A Bug's Life," "I Love You Beth Cooper," and her ongoing role in the "Scream" film series, SVG readers are more likely to associate the actor with her video game work. Panettiere was the iconic English voice actor for Kairi in the first two mainline "Kingdom Hearts" games and "Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep," and then Xion in "Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance." She later provided not only her voice but also her likeness and motion capture performance for the 2015 interactive narrative slasher "Until Dawn," one of the greatest horror games of all time.

While Hayden Panettiere is technically credited for playing Kairi and Xion across the various remasters and compilations of the first two "Kingdom Hearts" games, it was all archival recordings. In other words, she didn't contribute any voice work beyond what she first laid down for the original games. However, that is not the case for the 2024 remake of "Until Dawn," for which Panettiere did return to provide new voice and motion capture work for the game's added scenes and alternative versions of existing scenes.

She also sat down to discuss the project, the footage of which was included as an unlockable bonus within the game. Panettiere even seemed to tease future "Until Dawn" projects featuring her character, Sam Giddings — something that will sadly never happen unless she has already completed her work and we just aren't aware of it yet. But at this point, all that has been announced regarding the franchise's future is sequel "Until Dawn 2," which features an entirely new cast and characters with the exception of Peter Stormare reprising the role of Dr. Hill.