Arc Raiders replaced some of its AI-generated voice lines, using professional actors instead
TL;DR
Embark Studios re-recorded some AI-generated voice lines in Arc Raiders with human actors after the game's successful launch.
Key Points
- CEO Patrick Söderlund openly admitted: 'A real professional actor is better than AI – that's just how it is.'
- The extraction shooter peaked at nearly half a million players on Steam, but its use of AI voices drew criticism.
- Actors were paid to license their voices for text-to-speech use; no generative AI was used for visuals.
- According to Söderlund, AI voices were only intended for lines 'not essential to immersion.'
Nauti's Take
Credit where it's due for the honesty – but the real question goes unanswered: why ship AI voices at all if you already know they sound worse? 'Not essential to immersion' is a convenient justification until the backlash hits.
On the plus side, Embark actually fixed the problem and talked about it plainly instead of hiding behind PR language. That's more than most studios do.
Still, the industry needs to stop treating AI voice as 'good enough' – players can tell the difference, and they do.
Sources