Paul Haddad, voice of Leon Kennedy in the original Resident Evil 2, has died

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He was 56.

(Image credit: imdb.com)

Voice actor Paul Haddad, best-known for originating the character of Leon Kennedy in 1998's Resident Evil 2, has died. Invader Studios, who he worked with on a tribute to classic survival horror called Daymare: 1998, confirmed his death on Twitter, saying, "Paul Haddad, our dear friend and an icon among the RE community, has passed away recently. We've been truly honored to have the chance to meet and work with such a great man and a brilliant professional that He was."

In addition to his videogame roles, Haddad had a long career in television voice acting, appearing in shows such as Babar, The Adventures of Tintin, Rupert, and the 1990s X-Men cartoon, in which he voiced Quicksilver.

Nick Apostolides, who voiced Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 2 Remake last year, recorded the following video tribute to Haddad.

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.