Servant to a long-dead weapons merchant, Voldo guards his treasure vault, attacking intruders while occasionally wandering out in search of a cursed sword named Soul Edge.

Having no spoken dialogue and instead strictly moaning or hissing deeply while fighting an opponent, his high mobility and flexibility influenced his outfits throughout the series, with several designed to take advantage of his unique traits.

During Voldo's development, several alternate designs were considered, ranging from a balding, long haired man with a goatee to a rich nobleman wielding a katar on his right hand and a sickle in his left.

[6] However the head of Team Soul's motion capture department, Kento Kojima, noticed one particular actor working with them was highly flexible and able to mimic Voldo.

Impressed, Kojima utilized him in motion capture sessions for some of the character's animations for Soulcalibur III, stating in a later interview, "I was astonished that a human being could actually move like that.

[2] A skin tight leather outfit covers his body, taking design cues from BDSM bondage gear and according to lead character illustrator Takuji Kawano represents his devotion to his master.

While Voldo returns for each subsequent entry in the series with the exception of Soulcalibur Legends his story remains relatively the same, either attempting to recover Soul Edge for his long-dead master or seeking to retrieve items stolen from the Money Pit while it is unguarded.

In several entries, Voldo is manipulated by the sentient spirit residing in Soul Edge, believing it to be his master Vercci commanding him, and has temporarily served it as a lesser antagonist in the story.

[16] Namco released a Taki key chain figurine and a standing clock in its 1996 Soul Edge line,[17][18] among other items such as window shades[19] and table mats.

Called "a pastiche of every Satanist stereotype imaginable" by Mark Spiegler of The New York Times due to his attire and weaponry, he further compared his movements to a go-go dancer and added that Voldo was "perhaps the oddest character ever to appear in this genre.

"[28] In an in-depth study for Polygon, Patrick Gill described Voldo as a monster "introduced to unsettle the audience's normie sensibilities", drawing comparisons to characters like the cenobites from Clive Barker's Hellraiser series.

[29] John Warren of Fanbyte heavily praised his movement and design, stating of the latter that there was little that didn't feel deliberate, and that "Voldo's blindness is not weakness, but strength.

In the paper Reflexivity as Entertainment: Early Novels and Recent Video Games, Christina Lupton and Peter McDonald noted he challenged simple readings of entrenched stereotypes, stating his "sado-masochistic and sexualized appearance makes the player uncomfortably aware of the conventions governing depictions of perfectly muscled men and women with cartoon breasts.