ARC Raiders Replacing Some of Its Controversial AI Voices with ‘Better’ Human Ones

For as popular as ARC Raiders has become, it hasn’t gotten away with it completely unscathed; the use of generative AI tools in its development certainly caused a stir.

One way developer Embark Studios uses the technology is for voice lines. Using text-to-speech, some of the dialogue present in the game is not performed by human actors.

We recently learned that there are actually fewer AI voice lines in the game today than there were at launch.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Embark’s CEO Patrick Söderlund explained that the team has been implementing more and more human voices to replace the AI ones.

“We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices,” he says, noting that there’s a “quality difference” moving from AI to human performance. “A real professional actor is better than AI; that’s just how it is.”

“We look at [AI] first and foremost as a production tool. We can test things internally. We can test 15 different lines without recording them, and then we know what to record. It’s also a way for us to work, not replace actors. We don’t necessarily believe in replacing humans with AI all the time.”

Moreover, Söderlund assures that actors are compensated for all their work, and it sounds like ARC Raiders could keep adding more — though there’s still a use for text-to-speech.

“We pay our actors for all time spent with us in the booth and continue to bring many of them back as we carry on updating the game,” he says. “For select usage, we also pay them for the approval to license their voices through text-to-speech for lines that aren’t as essential to the immersion of the experience, mostly ping system audio.”

So, it sounds like Embark isn’t about to drop all its AI practices, but it has been updating ARC Raiders with proper voice work, which is good to hear. Söderlund has defended his studio’s approach before, and whether you agree with using generative AI or not, the game’s success speaks for itself.

What are your feelings on the AI voices in ARC Raiders? Are you pleased to see more human performances have been added to the game? Tell us in the comments section below.