Divide among voice actors deepens as strike continues and tempers flare

It’s an uncertain time in the video game industry and this goes doubly so for voice actors at the moment. SAG-AFTRA has been striking for nine months against companies that refuse to sign on to agreements protecting VAs from having their work used to train AI without consent and it seems like the emotions are starting to run high on both sides. 

Jennifer Hale, known from franchises such as Mass Effect and Bayonetta, posted an apology on May 1, 2025, for losing her temper during a meeting about the strike. “I’m heartbroken, for our industry, for our colleagues, and for the countless people affected by this strike,” she wrote. “Our entire ecosystem is hurting. Others are struggling to provide for their families.”

She called for “clarity, compassion, and compromise” at this time with the different parties being “close to a deal.”

Other VAs fear that the strike has already done irreparable damage to the industry in the United States. Allegra Clark, known from titles like Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, said that she is “genuinely scared” about the consequences of the strike, “whether ‘AI wins’ or not.”

She cited the “mistrust, accusations, sabotage, and fractured friendships” the strike and its high stakes have already caused.

“Those stakes mean that everyone is on the edge and everyone is passionate,” she wrote. “But my god, I don’t recognize the industry compared to last year. This is a f*** nightmare, and I think it needs to end.”

Clark emphasized a point that’s become more and more visible recently: Developers are looking elsewhere for their voice work, either signing recording studios from outside the United States – and this SAG-AFTRA’s influence – or working with studios that work with talents from abroad. HoYoverse, for example, recently signed with a British studio for Genshin Impact’s English dub and has replaced VAs in both the open-world RPG and Zenless Zone Zero.

Recent outbursts by union voice actors against independent talents have fueled the toxic mood that’s become thicker around the strike and sapped at the public support the strike enjoyed until around the beginning of this year.

“I’ve felt like I’ve had to keep my head down for nine months because it always seems like my feelings are contrary to what everyone else is saying,” Clark wrote. “It is a horrible time to be a voice actor right now. I’m constantly bracing myself, wondering who I can trust, who’s talking about me behind my back. Fans don’t trust us. We’ll never fully recover from this.”