Cissy Jones Celebrates Games' Appetite for Bold, Personal Stories

Cissy Jones has become one of the most recognizable voices in modern games, even if players may not always immediately connect her face to the characters she brings to life. Her work spans intimate indie dramas, enormous role-playing adventures, science-fiction epics, horror, animation, and long-running franchises. She has played Delilah in Firewatch, Andreja in Starfield, Katjaa in Telltale's The Walking Dead, and The Absolute in Baldur's Gate 3, among many other roles.

Speaking in a recent podcast appearance, Jones reflected on what continues to draw her to interactive entertainment: the unusual range of stories developers are prepared to attempt. Although she jokingly described herself as a bad gamer, she said she loves games' capacity to present kinds of stories that are difficult to find elsewhere.

"I'm a terrible gamer," Jones said with a laugh. "But I do love the ability of games to tell stories that you just don't see anywhere else. It's really incredible."

For Jones, the growth of game adaptations into television and film is further evidence that the medium has become a major source of compelling narrative worlds. Major productions based on games have increasingly reached audiences far beyond the people who first experienced those stories with a controller in hand. Yet her comments point to something broader than the current adaptation boom: games can give creators room to experiment at every scale, from blockbuster projects with vast casts to deeply personal work made by small teams.

For useful background on this topic, read Eldrem Kingdoms Brings Dragon Riding and Creature Companions to PC Early Access in 2027.

From Silicon Valley to performance

Jones' career did not begin in a recording booth. Before becoming known for game and animation performances, she worked in Silicon Valley startups and venture-capital firms. That professional background gives her a perspective that reaches beyond acting alone, particularly as technology continues to reshape voice performance and game development.

She has described herself as someone who enjoys engaging both sides of her brain. That combination is visible in the breadth of her work. Jones has moved between business and creative fields, worked across more than 100 fictional universes, appeared in animation including Disney's The Owl House, and taken roles ranging from the world of Naruto to Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Her gameography also demonstrates how widely voice acting can vary from project to project. A performer may be asked to establish a character through hours of subtle, reactive dialogue in an RPG, carry emotional exchanges in a narrative adventure, embody an unseen but ever-present companion, or create an imposing voice for a godlike antagonist. Those are different crafts, but all rely on making a player believe that a recorded performance belongs naturally inside a living world.

Jones won a BAFTA for her role as Delilah in Firewatch, a performance that remains central to conversations about the emotional power of game voice acting. Delilah spends much of the game physically absent from the player's view, communicating over a radio with Henry, the protagonist. That format puts enormous pressure on writing, delivery, timing, and the listener's imagination. The relationship works because players are not simply watching a conversation; they are participating in it through choices and movement, all while building their own ideas about a character they cannot directly see.

Why interactive stories can take risks

Jones highlighted That Dragon, Cancer as a particularly meaningful example of games' willingness to face difficult subjects. Released in the same year as Firewatch, the game chronicled the experience of parents confronting their young child's cancer. It was created as a way of processing grief and honoring their son.

"The willingness for people to tell stories in this space is so incredible," Jones said.

She noted that it is remarkable for a small team on a limited budget to make a game about such a painful and personal subject, then present it in a way intended to be beautiful and respectful. That Dragon, Cancer remains a significant point of reference because it challenged assumptions about what games are permitted to discuss. It was not built around power fantasies, competition, or familiar commercial genre hooks. Its purpose was emotional expression and remembrance.

That freedom is not exclusive to independent games, but smaller productions can often be where the medium's sharpest experiments emerge. Games have told stories about grief, illness, family, migration, war, identity, aging, loneliness, work, and community. They can also explore those subjects in distinctive ways because the player has an active role. Interactivity cannot erase the boundary between a player's life and a character's experience, but it can create a different form of attention. Asking someone to choose, listen, walk, wait, solve, or simply inhabit a space can make an idea feel more immediate.

The medium's flexibility also means there is no single template for emotional impact. One player may find meaning in a branching conversation. Another may respond to environmental storytelling, an exploration loop, a mechanical limitation, or a quiet stretch without dialogue. Voice actors such as Jones are often central to that experience, especially in games where the player's choices alter a scene's tone or direction.

Big budgets are not the only path

Jones contrasted games with the financial and logistical realities often attached to film and television. Screen productions can require major budgets, recognizable stars to secure financing, and extended shoots. Those industries produce extraordinary work, but their structures can make some risks more difficult to take.

Games face their own major financial pressures, particularly at the blockbuster level. Large-scale games can take years to develop and involve hundreds or thousands of contributors. However, Jones sees an important creative advantage in the broader game landscape: there is room to play. A project does not always need the same scale of production, the same kind of celebrity casting, or the same familiar premise in order to reach an audience.

This is especially relevant as game stories gain more mainstream attention. The success of adaptations may lead more people to recognize the dramatic potential of the medium, but it should not overshadow the games themselves or the smaller creators pushing its boundaries. A television series or film can reinterpret a game's characters and setting, while the original interactive work offers something else entirely: agency, pacing shaped by the player, and the feeling of discovering a story through participation.

Jones' own career reflects that range. Baldur's Gate 3 represents the scale and complexity of a modern, choice-driven fantasy RPG, with performances that must support a huge network of possible player actions. Starfield places its characters in an expansive science-fiction setting built around exploration. Telltale's The Walking Dead helped define a generation of episodic narrative games, using player decisions and intense character relationships to generate emotional stakes. Firewatch, meanwhile, showed how a focused first-person experience could make conversation and atmosphere its principal dramatic tools.

These games differ substantially in genre, scope, and structure, but they share a belief that performance matters. A voice can turn a quest giver into a person, make a companion feel trustworthy or unknowable, or leave a lasting impression after only a few lines.

Technology, ethics, and the future of voice work

Jones' technology background also informs her current work outside performance. She founded Ethovox, an AI company focused on establishing ethical coexistence between artificial intelligence and voiceover. The issue has become increasingly urgent across games, animation, film, and other entertainment fields as AI tools develop rapidly and debates continue around consent, compensation, ownership, training data, and performers' control over their voices.

For voice performers, those questions are not abstract. A voice is both a personal identity and a professional instrument. Games can require enormous amounts of recorded dialogue, including variations that players may never hear in a single playthrough. New tools may change workflows, but the creative and ethical standards surrounding those tools will matter just as much as their technical capabilities.

Jones' path from the technology sector to award-winning performance therefore feels especially relevant to the industry's present moment. She understands the appeal of innovation, while her acting career underlines what cannot be reduced to efficiency alone: the human choices that give a character emotional texture, intent, surprise, and connection.

Her enthusiasm for games ultimately comes back to storytelling. The medium can support gigantic worlds and franchise spectacles, but it can also make space for small, strange, vulnerable, and deeply personal works. As studios, performers, and audiences continue to debate how games will evolve, that variety remains one of the form's greatest strengths.

For Jones, the opportunity to help bring those stories to life is clearly still a source of excitement. From a radio voice in a Wyoming wilderness to characters in fantasy realms and distant star systems, her work has helped show how much a performance can contribute to the worlds players remember long after the credits roll.