Hip Hop Star Drake Joins Gears of War 3 Cast

Epic Games and Microsoft Game Studios have announced that the character of Jace Stratton, set to play a more prominent role in the upcoming Gears of War 3, will be voiced by hip hop rising star Drake, who should launch his first album, called “Thank Me Later,” this week. As a musician, Drake has already been nominated for a Grammy award and voicing Jace will be his chance to also make an impression on the videogaming world.

Rod Fergusson, who is an executive producer at Epic Games, stated, “Jace is a central character in the comic books, so he was an obvious choice as a character we wanted to bring into the third game. When we began casting for the role, ‘So Far Gone’ had just released and Drake’s combination of heart and grit was just what we were looking for. Rather than search for somebody who sounded like him, it was clear that we should approach him directly… fortunately he turned out to be a huge fan.”

Drake himself seemed pretty interested in playing a tough warrior who needs to face impossible odds in order to survive, saying that Epic Games “created an amazing character in Jace, and I’m looking forward to my tour in Delta Squad.”

Gears of War 3 is being worked on by Epic Games and set to arrive exclusively on the Xbox 360 home console from Microsoft at some point in April 2011. The cover based third person shooter already has a trailer that looks pretty good, the suggestion being that as many as four players will be able to join in the main campaign and battle the Locust menace.

Quite a few screenshots of the game in action have popped up around the Internet, showing off the mech-like weapon units that players will be using and the new types of enemies they will need to take on.