Imagine a gamer back in 1980 playing Missile Command or Space Invaders 2 and thinking, "well, the bleep-bloops in Missile Command were ok, but the bloop-beeps in Space Invaders had much more emotional range." That didn't happen. Those gamers had to wait an entire year until Castle Wolfenstein in 1981 had human voices exclaiming "Halt" and "Kommen Sie." Since then, the quality of performance -- along with every other aspect of video games -- has grown exponentially. While not every game is driven by narrative and voiced characters, those that do definitely face scrutiny and high expectations.

The video game industry has developed a deep roster of experienced performers, supplemented on occasion by Big Name Actors from movies and television. Performance capture now lets game directors strive for nuanced vocal and physical representations of characters. But these come at a cost. You'll quickly notice that almost all the best performances of the year come from big-budget triple-A games with the horsepower to hire top talent. There are still plenty of games where the acting and writing still come up short. Speaking of writing, it's almost always true that good actors can make even the clumsiest writing sound good. We're looking at you, Dragon Age: Veilguard.

Here are what the editors of COGconnected consider to be the best performances of the year.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just released. It's an excellent game, even if its arrival comes too late for this year's awards and will probably be forgotten by next December. In any case, superstar actor Troy Baker goes a fantastic job of channeling Harrison Ford without trying to outright mimic him.

Along with Felicia Day, Nathan Fillion is one of the OG mainstream actors to be associated with games and nerd culture in general. While not as prolific a game actor as some of his peers, he has voiced the role of Cayde-6 since the character was introduced (with one exception).

There was, to put it mildly, a lot of disagreement over whether Hellblade 2 was a good game. You know, with enjoyable game-type things to do. There was consensus that Melina Jeurgens' performance as Senua was excellent, however. It was intense, physical and powerful. READ REVIEW

Lest anyone be confused, veteran actor Rebecca Hanssen was not the model for the controversially curvaceous and polarizing Eve, but did the game's excellent English voice acting. Hanssen was most recently a major player in Baldurs Gate 3, where she voiced over 20 different characters. READ REVIEW

While the fourth game in the franchise didn't universally live up to fans' expectations, Hannah Telle's performance as lead character Max earned her a nomination in this year's Game Awards, and for good reason. This is one of those cases where performances make up for lackluster game play or disappointing writing. READ REVIEW