Troy Baker has confirmed he will not be reprising his role as Rhys in the upcoming Borderlands 3. While he claims he was not chosen, Randy Pitchford (Gearbox Software CEO) claims Baker turned the role down.

Originally appearing in Tales from the Borderlands, Rhys acted as the player character and was voiced by Tory Baker. The character appears briefly in the Borderlands 3 Developer Trailer.

A convention goer at Supanova Melbourne managed to record a video of a Q&A panel with the actor, where he was asked if he was reprising his role. The title of the post on Reddit indicated he replied “I’m sorry to break it to y’all, that isn’t me,” while the video seems to be everything after that statement.

He indicates there was a “possibility” for him to play the character, but did not know he was not getting the role until after the trailer dropped. He then praised Matt Mercers work (often voicing characters Baker originally did), though did state he’d “like to do it again” – presumably the role of Rhys. He then said he “didn’t like how they were handling it,” and briefly showed more signs of disappointment of missing out on returning roles in Tales of Vesperia and Catherine.  He then stated:

“I really want Gearbox to know that if they’re going to bring back characters from Telltale Borderlands it should be the people that originated the characters. They shouldn’t just recast willy-nilly because as a fan that matters to me.”

This clashes with claims later made by Pitchford. Responding to an inquiry on Twitter, he replied:

“You’ll have to ask Troy. I was told by the audio director that he turned it down. Fortunately, with how Rhys appears in the game, I don’t think it actually matters at all. You’ll see for yourself when the game comes out and you may disagree with me on that or not.”

Currently Baker is slated to appear in The Last of Us: Part II and Death Stranding.

Borderlands 3 will launch on September 13th for Windows PC (via the Epic Game Store), PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.