Fire Emblem: Three Houses released yesterday, being the first game in the series to hit a home console platform since Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn on the Wii.  We are currently hard at work on our review, but numerous popular outlets have given the game a rave response. While this is exciting news for fans of the series Nintendo is going to replace a voice actor in the game after learning of an ongoing controversy.

Chris Niosi was recently announced to be the voice of Byleth, the male player-customized protagonist for the game. Following the announcement, the fact that the voice actor has had a history of being accused from ex-partners for sexual harassment and sexual assault starting to gain more attention. One of Niosi's former partners decided to take action after learning he was voicing the Fire Emblem character, releasing a public Google Doc where they shared information regarding Niosi's behavior towards them. The document also explains how the actor broke his NDA with Nintendo about voicing the character on Discord.

Following this, Niosi released a statement on his official Tumblr page apologizing for his behavior to everyone he mistreated. He specifically states that he has been having this kind of behavior for about 15 years. The statement included the actor dealing with suicidal thoughts, but made it clear that it was no excuse for what he had done.

Please understand, the reason I am sharing this information about my mental state is NOT in any way to garner sympathy or pity or appear as a victim. I am not the victim, I am the offender. I am sharing this information about the two moments I felt suicidal to illustrate that, while I haven’t changed enough and it will absolutely not happen overnight, that the experience left a lasting impression on  me that I am choosing to use in a positive way to REALLY begin the change.

The voice actor also did work for Byleth in Fire Emblem: Heroes for a Three Houses event. Nintendo quickly replaced Niosi in Heroes with Zach Aguilar after finding out about the accusations, and the same thing will be happening with the main game soon. Nintendo put out the following statement to GameInformer regarding Chris Niosi.

After assessing the situation, we decided to re-record the character’s voiceovers in Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Fire Emblem Heroes with another actor. The new voiceovers will be included in a future patch.

Nintendo did not specify if it will be Aguilar replacing Niosi again for Three Houses, though we will let you know when his voice is changed. You can also keep an eye out for DualShockers' Fire Emblem: Three Houses review as we are working to get it out as soon as possible.