Game performance, from the sofa.
ReadyAimFire brings game actors and performance creatives onto the sofa for loose, specific conversations about how roles actually get made. The tone is fan-literate and casual, with room for audition stories, production mishaps, character debates, and jokes that wander before landing.
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ReadyAimFire is a guest-led interview show about the craft behind video game performance. Its best episodes feel like game fans getting unusually good access to the people behind the characters. The format is simple: a guest arrives, the conversation starts at the beginning, and the conversation follows the thread from early life to auditions, major roles, production stories, and fan questions. The energy is brisk. It rarely sits in one lane for long. A chat with David Menkin can start with Norway, Doctor Who noise in the background, and the route toward Barnabas Tharmer, then jump into Breach in Valorant and the politics of sounding Swedish enough. Rich Keeble's episode turns the voice of Monoko into a funny, practical study of how actors make choices for characters with strange designs. Alix Wilton Regan's conversation moves through childhood imagination, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Tomb Raider, and the odd feeling of realizing talent exists because something keeps working. Neil Newbon's Christmas episode leans on audience questions and lets memory, vocation, teachers, and internet curiosity shape the pace. Samantha Béart's episode connects shyness, literature, Shakespeare, and emotional permission to the route into performance. Mark Takeshi-Otta's appearance opens up puppetry, motion capture, Dead Island 2, Black Myth Wukong, and the physical logic of controlling a game rig with the body. The Alien: Isolation episode has a reunion feel, built around pride, theatre actors, mocap sets, and a game becoming a cult classic over time. The Final Fantasy XVI group episode is rowdier, with several performers trading stories about auditions, intimacy, T-poses, direction, and the speed of game production. Across the feed, ReadyAimFire cares most about how performance actually happens. It likes the practical details: accents, callbacks, line reads, body movement, camera rigs, ensemble trust, character writing, and fan attachment. The show is informal, sometimes chaotic, and very much inside the language of games. That is the point. It gives knowledgeable listeners the specific, lived-in stories that rarely fit into trailers, press notes, or convention panels.
Made for: Built for players who recognize voice actors, care about character craft, and enjoy candid production stories from games. It especially suits fans of RPGs, horror games, action titles, and performance capture.
What sets it apart: ReadyAimFire keeps the polish low and the specificity high. Instead of broad promotional chatter, it lets performers explain the odd, funny, physical, and emotional work behind roles fans already know.
We bring players closer to the games they love by chatting with the people who make them, from actors and developers to everyone in between.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
ReadyAimFire makes game performance craft tangible through detailed conversations about auditions, voice choices, direction and motion capture.
ReadyAimFire follows game performances back into the audition room, recording booth and motion-capture space. The host begins with each guest's route into acting, then presses for the practical decisions behind familiar characters.
A mocap suit turns graveyard grief and awkward kissing into the performance lesson you actually wanted.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A veteran voice actor turns decades of game and Doctor Who work into an easy, funny conversation.
David Menken comes across as a voice actor whose work is easy to recognize and hard to pin down to one lane, with Barnabas in Final Fantasy 16 and Breach in Valorant as the clearest markers.
A loose, voice-heavy chat that turns a running pronunciation gag into the episode's best hook.
Ready Aim Fire turns a straightforward joke about saying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 into a wider conversation about acting, failure, and the indirect paths that can lead to voice work.
A loose, character-led look at how game roles and luck shape an acting career.
Ready Aim Fire settles into a character-led conversation with the actor now known as Lady Lara Croft, Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect, and the Inquisitor in Dragon Age.
A game-acting chat that makes the rig as important as the role.
Mark Takeshi-Otta's visit to Ready Aim Fire keeps its focus on acting for games, with Sun Wukong in Black Myth Wukong as the familiar anchor and motion capture as the main thread.
A sharp, practical look at the awkward work behind Final Fantasy 16 performances.
This episode treats Final Fantasy 16 as a craft problem as much as a fan object, and that is where it comes alive. The guests move from mocap snogging and quick performance capture to the contrast between theatre and game work, while also showing how a director can pull usable…
Game Informer's editors review new releases and debrief hands-on previews from events like Summer Game Fest.
ReadyAimFire interviews David Menken about voice acting across Final Fantasy XVI, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, LEGO Star Wars, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Valorant.
The title debate comes first.
The host greets the guest as Lady Lara Croft and asks what pulled her toward acting.
Actor Neil Newbon answers fan questions on the Ready Aim Fire podcast, discussing his career and what he might have done if not an actor.
Samantha Béart discusses her early life, shyness, and journey into acting, including her role as Karlach in Baldur's Gate 3.
The host opens with a joke and brings Mark Takeshi-Otta onto the sofa.
Will Porter and Anthony Howell reminisce about their work on the video game Alien: Isolation, discussing the use of theater actors in motion capture and the game's eventual cult status.
The host gathers four guests around Final Fantasy 16 and starts with the strange business of mocap kissing.
Tom McKay and Luke Dale discuss their roles as Henry and Hans Capon in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, sharing insights on motion capture and the game's development.
Voice actor Doug Cockle shares behind-the-scenes stories from his roles as Geralt in The Witcher, Alan Wake 2, and Baldur's Gate 3, including near-casting changes and funny on-set moments.
Michael Geary discusses his journey into voice acting and the Warhammer 40k universe, including sentient mushrooms and Welsh kings.