Prolific voice actor Nolan North, best known for playing Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series, revealed that he didn’t know his Assassin’s Creed character Desmond Miles had died until a fan informed him on social media. Speaking on the Fall Damage YouTube channel, North recalled some of his most famous lines, immediately recognizing the line, “You know it’s true. It’s already started. I need to go do this now. So go!” as Desmond’s final words in Assassin’s Creed 3. “That technically was Desmond’s death scene,” North said. “And I didn’t know it.”
Ubisoft never told him directly that he wouldn’t be reprising the role. Instead, a fan on Twitter asked how he felt about Desmond’s fate, and North was caught off guard. “I found out on Twitter. ‘Are you upset [that] Desmond’s dead?’ And I’m thinking, ‘what?’” he said. “Because there’s no ‘Ahhhhh!’ There’s nothing that you’d expect from a main character’s death.”
North reached out to the team, who tried to reassure him, noting that Desmond is “not technically dead,” but the character hasn’t returned to the series. Originally, the plan was for Desmond to appear in eight or nine games, but as North explained, “different developers, different creative directors come in, and they have their own way of continuing the story.”
Despite understanding the situation, North admitted it was disappointing. “I was very sad to step away from the role of Desmond,” he said, adding that Assassin’s Creed remains “one of my favorite stories that I’ve ever been a part of.”
