Arc Raiders devs Embark insist that using genAI for voice lines was necessary, as "actors would just go crazy if they had to read all of that" - Rock Paper Shotgun
By Google News Technology ·
Despite taking the voice performances of actors and feeding them into machines to spurt out AI-generated mimicry, Embark CCO Stefan Strandberg insists that "we are not in the industry of replacing actors." In a new video posted to the Arc Raiders channel focused on audio design, Strandberg refers back to the infamous use of genAI in Arc Raiders to generate voice lines based on real voice actors' performances, something which the game was heavily (and rightly) criticised for before and since its release.
In that linked piece (thanks Oisin!), CEO Patrick Söderlund stated that they have been replacing lines that were originally generated with actual recorded lines, presumably because Arc Raiders has made quite a bit of money and now they feel that they can continue paying actors to record more lines, rather than just scraping their talents and avoiding the dreaded fee of paying professionals for their work. This choice already came after their previous game, The Finals, was heavily criticised for the exact same thing, which is just a fascinating series of decisions to consider.
In the video, audio director Bence Pajor explains that the apparent reason for the use of AI was to avoid the "stress" of having to work around actors' availability, as they may be busy working on other projects when Embark decides that a new feature needs new voice lines recorded. Pings, quests, and in-level mission briefings were thus generated using training data based on existing actors' recordings, saving the need to actually get anyone back in a studio or pay them for their time. Citing the amount of variables that the ping system creates, Pajor claims it "becomes too impractical to record every possible version of something. The actors would just go crazy if they had to read all of that"…
Originally published by Google News Technology