The gaming industry has lost American voice actor, Rick May, today due to complications from the COVID-19 coronavirus.
May, who was 79, suffered a stroke in February and had moved to a nursing home to recover, where he contracted the virus. He was then moved to a hospital in Seattle before passing away today.
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May voiced the Soldier in Valve’s Team Fortress 2, and was also the voice of Peppy Hare and Andross from Nintendo’s cult classic Star Fox 64, along with a number of other video game roles including Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Freddi Fish 5, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves.
The voice actor for TF2’s Sniper, John Patrick Lowrie, recalled working with May in a Facebook statement.
“Every recording session with him was always laugh-filled. Yet when the lights went down or the engineer said, ‘rolling’ he was the consummate professional. He worked hard to get it right and we could always depend on him to deliver,” said Lowrie.
Video game fans all over the world have been mourning the passing of May, with in-game tributes to him popping up in many TF2 servers.
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