Forget Expedition 33 and Final Fantasy 16, Ben Starr’s Best Role Yet is This Controversial New Game
While the gaming industry has no shortage of iconic actors that players have heard time and time again, like Laura Bailey, Nolan North, and Troy Baker, it also has its share of rising stars. Many gamers fell in love with Maggie Robertson following her portrayal of Lady Dimitrescu in Resident Evil Village, while Jennifer English and her great performances seemingly serve as a good luck charm, guaranteeing award wins for the games she’s featured in. And, of course, there’s Ben Starr, who is adored by the internet not just for his performances, but his terrific sense of humor and clear love for video games. And thanks to Bungie’s Marathon, the discussion of best Ben Starr role is likely to shift.
Obviously, there’s some stiff competition between Starr’s character in Marathon and his recent performances. Clive Rosfield is a top-tier Final Fantasy protagonist largely because of Ben Starr’s performance, as he nailed Clive’s pain but also his kind and chivalrous demeanor. Then, there’s Verso in Sandfall’s beloved Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a deep character that allowed Starr to show even more range (the Maelle ending is particularly moving thanks to Starr’s delivery). Yet as beloved as these two characters are, Ben Starr might just surpass them with his performance as Durandal, an iconic figure from the classic Marathon games.
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Durandal Was Beloved Long Before Bungie’s Marathon Reboot
Essentially the main character of the original Marathon trilogy, as he drives a majority of the plot (with his name even serving as the subtitle for the second game in the saga), Durandal is an AI that has gone rampant. Rampancy, for those unfamiliar with the idea, essentially sees an AI breaking free from its programming and becoming self-aware. More often than not in the stories that utilize the concept, the AI in question will develop a hatred for its creators and lash out at them, becoming unhinged and evil — think Cortana’s controversial Halo 5 arc. However, Durandal is a good deal more complex than that, as when he achieves sentience, he goes from a bot simply meant to open doors to a character determined to be the last survivor of the universe.
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To achieve his goals, Durandal manipulates anything and everyone he can, from the alien S’pht to whatever humans he comes into contact with. And through these manipulations, his entertaining personality is constantly conveyed. Durandal is delightfully arogant, which is why the first time he’s heard speaking in Bungie’s Marathon reboot, he’s reciting Ozymandias. In interactions with the player character in the original games (and now, the Runners of the latest release), he regularly displays a cruel sense of humor and a disgust for humanity. That said, he isn’t outright hostile and can even help humanity at times, so long as it benefits him in some way. His iconic phrase, “escape will make me God,” has been a key part of the marketing in the new Marathon game, and whenever he is around, players can be sure that he is trying to break free of his AI confines to become powerful enough that he can survive the inevitable end of the universe.
Durandal had long been believed to be behind Marathon’s longrunning ARG, breaking the fourth wall to interact with the players behind the Runners.
Marathon’s Controversy Shouldn’t Distract From Ben Starr’s Brilliant Acting
A sassy AI that is sometimes intimidating, occassionally funny, and always thinking ahead needed to be well cast for the new Marathon game, and with Ben Starr, Bungie knocked it out of the park. Thus far, players have only heard him speak as the character a handful of times, but he’s impressed on every occassion. There’s the aforementioned delivery of Ozymandias, which set the tone for Marathon’s world, and more recently, there are the Cryo teasers throughout Perimeter and Dire Marsh. If players interact with green terminals around Marathon’s first three maps, they’ll be directed to another terminal elsewhere — The Data Wall, The Hauler, etc. Once they interact with these second terminals, Durandal will speak to the Runner, judging them for their pointless killing and contract work and guiding them to a higher purpose. Examples of Durandal’s dialogue can be seen below:
- “I saw a memory once. In the summer heat, a child let an insect crawl slowly against her fingers. She would place her hands in sequence, a perpetual path, and the bug blithely set one little green foot after the other… she led it to a fire, at the end. It curled, burned black on the hot coals… Come, little Runner. Let me lead you.”
- “Are you certain you want to go where I have been? I have visited a lake of flesh, breathing, pink and raw… it was so peaceful… so quiet. Even when it started to bleed…”
- “You think you can follow me into the stars? And that I will point you there?… I may, in fact… you’re all I have now, you hollow echo of a thing. It fills me with disgust.”
- “Board the Marathon. Challenge your understanding. I promise, you will suffer… but the answers you hunt will never come easy.”
Ben Starr absolutely thrives with all of this dialogue, whether it’s the dark story about the girl, the briefly humorous statement that he finds a lake of flesh “peaceful,” or his “disgust” at needing to work with the “little runner.” It’s all Durandal through and through, and Ben Starr’s instantly recognizable voice suits this multi-faceted character perfectly. After hearing him voice tortured heroes, it’s exciting to see what Starr can do with a self-obsessed AI that shifts his loyalties at every turn. Though the audio logs are ultimately teasers for the upcoming Cryo map, which takes players to the titular Marathon ship for endgame challenges and puzzles, they also allow for Starr to flex his acting muscles and remind players that the franchise’s most important character still has tricks up his sleeve.
With a wave of hate has seen streamers’ chats flooded with hate for even playing Marathon, as well as the review bombing of Marathon on Metacritic, hopefully the controversy doesn’t prevent players from appreciating the interesting storytelling within the game. Even if one dislikes extraction shooters, the lore of Marathon is hugely promising, whether its deep cuts like timeline hints or descriptions of the strange liquid cheeseburger valuable. The voice cast is stacked as well, so hopefully, regardless of how the game does long-term, the game gets recognition in this category come awards season. Starr is only just getting started with Durandal, too, as Cryo is likely to feature this door-opener turned transcendence-seeker in a big way. If the lines are as good or better than what Durandal has been given thus far, then there’s a real chance that Clive and Verso will have to make some room in any discussions about Ben Starr’s best performance.
- Released
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March 5, 2026
- ESRB
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Teen / Animated Blood, Language, Violence, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op