TennoCon 2025 was a celebration of all things Tenno, involving the community withWarframe’s developers, actors, and others across an array of activities (including the first-ever TennoConcert). In attendance was Amelia Tyler, who plays Eleanor inWarframe. Tyler is credited in several video games, but outside ofWarframe, fans may best know her as the narrator inBaldur’s Gate 3, Hecate inHades 2, Malady inDivinity: Original Sin 2, The Siren Queen inSea of Thieves, Nyrissa inPathfinder: Kingmaker, Wenduag inPathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, or any role in a number of other projects.
Near the start ofTennoCon 2025, Game Rant spoke with Tyler for her insight into TennoCon and Digital Extremes, her role as Eleanor, how the industry has grown since her first acting role, and how she hopes the industry continues to grow.The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Is this your first time attending TennoCon?
A: Yes, my first time.
Q: What are you hoping to see or expecting from the event?
A:I have no idea what to expect. I’ve seen videos of parts from previous years, but I’m just like, ‘Oh, this is bigger than I was anticipating." I’m looking forward to the concert and really looking forward to meeting more of the players because we don’t normally. It’s quite an isolating job, so sometimes it’s nice to actually meet these people. I’m also looking forward to seeingthe DE teammore because we don’t live near each other. Yeah, it’s really fun.
Q: Later on, you’re featuring in a panel about the narrative of Warframe. I was wondering if you could tell me what about the narrative of Warframe stands out to you personally?
A:For me, it is the depth and the complexity of the characters that they’ve created, not just Eleanor—the whole of the Hexand beyond. It’s not what you would anticipate. There’s what you see on the surface, and then if you romance them or get to know them as friends, you get to know these incredibly different sides to them that they’ve been hiding or have been too scared to explore. With Eleanor, there’s this incredible duality of a woman who is fighting against the monstrous side of her and still figuring out how much of that she’s comfortable with, how much of that she’s scared by, and whether she can deal with the parts of her that like and enjoy that power.
She knows they need it, but she also knows it could be over at any moment. There’s that tension with her, but she’s not just painted as being this badass. There’s a vulnerability and silliness to her. And yeah, she loves words. She was a journalist, but equally, she messes around with words and has fun. I think that’s more representative of somebody who genuinely loves words rather than just ‘I am a serious journalist,’ you know? She’s a very deep character.
I think they all are, and watching how they interact and deal with this apocalyptic scenario is fascinating because there are these moments of humor and love and interest. Otherwise, it would all be kind of one note, right?
Becoming Eleanor
Q: You’ve kind of touched on it there, but as an actor, what drew you to Eleanor?
A:They were talking about the fact that she couldn’t talk and that the connection was all psychic. I come from a psychology background, so I dig deep into thepsychology of the characteranyway, and I found that really juicy. More than anything, I like that she is a badass with some humor. She doesn’t pretend to be cool; it’s almost Deadpool-esque. She has this vibe where there’s comedy and there’s throwaway, but underneath it all, there’s some pain and something driving it, something she wants, and people she genuinely cares about. Yeah, they captured my voice very well when they were writing that character. Adrian Bott wrote Eleanor and took over directing me as well for the majority of it. After that first recording session we did together, I could tell her honed in on how I talk and how I think, and those were some of the most fun recording sessions I’ve ever had in my life.
Q: That’s a good segue. Could you tell me about the casting part of it? How did that work, because I know it’s completely different for every project?
A: I just got a random casting call through one of my agents. I read it and I was like, ‘Oh god, Oh no.’ Because, as an actor, it’s a death knell to fall in love with a character you’re auditioning for because that’s heartbreak waiting to happen. I try not to fall in love too much with auditions, but I read this one and was like, ‘Oh, no. Oh, I really like her. Oh, no. This is going to be gutting if I don’t get this role. Oh, no.’ I just assumed I wouldn’t get it; I had to for my own sanity. Then, to get that call and learn that not only did I get that role, but we delved into her more in the recording and fleshed her out more. I just can’t express how much fun that was and what a collaborative, creative experience it was. It’s the kind of stuff that makes my brain get busy and get excited, all smushed into one character.
Amelia Tyler’s Career
Q: What do you think has changed the most since you’ve been in this industry?
A:Women aren’t just set dressing now, which is really nice. We’re not just princesses orfetch questsanymore. We’ve even gone through the part where women are like badass characters who can’t have any flaws, and we’re getting into more juicy territory now where gender isn’t that important. I play a lot of characters that were originally written for men, and the team behind the game was kind of like, ‘There are a lot of dudes in this game. Maybe we should make one of these characters female,’ so they gender flip one of them. Originally, my character could have been a 60-year-old grizzled drill sergeant or something, and now it’s a woman. You get such an unexpected amount of depth where I wouldn’t think there was so much, so that’s changed for sure.
They’re allowing female characters—in fact, all characters regardless of gender—to be unique and surprising and not a stereotype. That’s really fun, and we don’t get white people voicing characters who aren’t white anymore or very much. I think we’ve got a lot of groundwork still to do with that, but I try and lead as much as I can by turning down roles and pointing out like, ‘Perhaps you would consider this person who could actually bring their authentic experience in.’ I guess that’s what it is: Authenticity. It’s becoming a lot more of a thing now.
We don’t just sit in front of somebody and go, ‘I’ll be whatever you want me to be. What do you want me to pretend to be today? Please just tell me what to be.’ It’s more like you have to do a lot of therapy and a lot of like, who am I? What makes me tick? What makes me special? And the second you hone in on that, the acting side of things makes sense. There’s a lot more authentic casting geographically and just psychologically. You get it with the entire cast of this game. They are all, to different degrees, elements of their character. Kevin is Amir. There’s no question about that, Kevin’s Amir, and that energy of him getting to be himself is what brings Amir to life. Same with Alpha (Aoi). There’s that excitement and that vulnerability. It might not be entirely Trieve (Quincy), but there’s that warmth you get if you really get to know the character. There’s more to him than meets the eye, and that’s true authenticity.
And getting to hang out withpeople like Elsie Lovelockis great—I love her. First, she’s a friend of mine and is phenomenally talented, like mind-blowingly, across so many different disciplines. Getting to share a game with her, finally, has been really fun. I really want to come back. This is an official petition for this entire Tennocon: I want Eleanor and Rusalka to have some scenes together. I think there would be a sisterhood there. I would love to see them interact.
What has changed is getting to have input as well. It’s the authenticity of the casting and developers realizing that they can use us. We can be part of the team. We don’t just have to come in like cleaners at the end, put voice on, and then leave.
You have no idea how many times I’ve heard an actor make that exact statement about coming on at the end and leaving.
Yeah, it’s great when we get tohang out and feel like part of the teamand be like, “Do you want me to be involved in this? Because this would be cool.” We get to brainstorm together.
Get even more authentic.
Yeah, absolutely, and it gives players something unexpected and fun, which is kind of what DE is all about, right? I don’t think they’ve once given people exactly what they’ve wanted. They’ve always twisted it, given it a different edge, and made something unexpected and fun. They’re not following a playbook like a lot of places do, and it’s nice to be part of it.
Q: There’s also always room for improvement. Flipside of that question, what is something you hope changes or gets better over the next few years of the industry?
A:I would like to see more table reads. I would like to see actors getting more involved in games. It’s a budget thing, but whether it is the budget, I would love to see actors being trusted more to get involved with the project early on because we can work with writers. Warframe is an example of how, if you get to know your actor and work together to sort that character out from the start, you can write for that actor’s voice, and it really comes to life. Getting to meet each other before the game comes out, getting to do table reads for really dramatic scenes, being in the same room—it’s all really helpful. It’s not possible for a game like this because there are so many different iterations of things, but I would love to see more trust that there is a craft involved in two people having a conversation like this that you can’t replicate if you’re in separate rooms. You can try, but it’s hard work. They would get so much more magic if you’re in the same room.
[END]
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