Uncharted 2: Among Thieves antagonist Harry Flynn returned in Unchated 4: A Thief's End's multiplayer, but the original voice actor Steve Valentine did not come back to reprise his role. This caused an extensive discussion on the PlayStation Forums since the closed beta, which returned to the forefront due to the stress test that was held in the past weekend.

Originally, Valentine mentioned that he would have loved to work on Flynn again, followed by a series of tweets expressing his disappointment for the fact that it didn't happen.

Yesterday, he mentioned that he wasn't approached since the beta, so his return to the role wasn't going to happen.

Today, he further commented about it:

Naughty Dog Director of Communications Arne Meyer took to the PlayStation Forums to respond, and to explain that the studio did indeed contact Valentine for the role, but they could not find an agreement:

"I know many of you have been asking and we've unfortunately been silent for quite some time regarding your comments and questions about the voice acting of Harry Flynn in Uncharted 4 Multiplayer. I meant to post an update on Friday, but it's been a hectic week with all the news and events. I don’t have great news, so I just wanted to be up front about the voice acting decision process.

Looking into it, we *did* contact the original voice actors for the characters when we were looking to cast and record voiceover for the multiplayer characters in order to have them reprise his roles - this included Harry Flynn. This was our priority and we proceeded to try to do that across the board. I can't speak to why anyone would feel otherwise. In this case, we made the best effort to make it work, but ultimately we couldn't strike a deal that both sides were satisfied with. Sometimes that happens in this industry, among many others.

As always, we do appreciate your feedback and efforts to put support behind things you like and want -- we know all you want is our game to be the best it possibly can. We did our part to make it work and it didn’t work out when it should have - when we were casting the roles and negotiating agreements. Unfortunately, the opportunity had long passed us by, even back in December, and we won’t be re-recording any multiplayer voices."

Meyer also commented on the fact that Valentine mentioned that he would have loved to reprise the role:

"Don't know why that's been said. I don't want to turn this into a he-said, she-said, but we did reach out via his representation as we always do with all our actors. And the typical contract negotiations were had. An agreement couldn't be settled on."

Finally, he explained that the issue wasn't taken lightly at Naughty Dog, but unfortunately the situation will remain as it is.

"I did look into what we could do given the concerns and I've been unequivocally told things are staying as they are. It's not something we took lightly even originally from my conversations, but that's where it lies. Apologies."

This kind of situation is indeed rather delicate, and it's rare for details about negotiations to be put under a spotlight like this. We recently saw a prominent case with the absence of David Hayter in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, but at least now we know that Naughty Dog did indeed attempt to get Valentine to work on his old role.

Unfortunately, things don't always work out.

[Thanks for the tip: Genuine-User]