Multiplayer extraction shooter ARC Raiders was a major hit on launch, but its success was tempered by loud backlash about its egregious use of AI voice acting. Many pointed out characters sounded dull and flat. Others outlined that voice actors are already struggling to maintain stable work, and that taking away more jobs only further impacts livelihoods.
In an appreciated turn, the CEO of ARC Raiders studio Embark has now confirmed that while the game launched with many AI voice lines, there are now fewer in the game than at launch, as some dialogue has been re-recorded with professional, human actors.
ARC Raiders AI dialogue – quick links
AI dialogue has now been re-recorded by professionals
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Embark’s CEO Patrick Söderlund confirmed that while AI remains a valuable production tool for the studio, in certain circumstances, humans are better.
‘We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices,’ he said. ‘There is a quality difference. A real professional actor is better than AI; that’s just how it is.’
Per Söderlund, while AI can be used to test things internally, including lines of dialogue, it remains ‘a way for us to work, not replace actors – the studio doesn’t necessarily believe in replacing humans with AI “all the time”‘.
Some AI voice lines that were previously in ARC Raiders have been replaced to improve the game’s quality overall, as well as ‘immersion’ for players. Söderlund claimed this immersion was key to deciding whether text-to-speech AI-generated lines were useful, or whether it would take players out of the game.
With the success of ARC Raiders, the team has now been able to improve many of its early aspects considerably, focusing on better serving players.
Backlash may have inspired changes to ARC Raiders
As Söderlund explained, time and success has allowed the ARC Raiders team to continue improving the game, long-term.
It’s worth considering that audience reaction may also have played a part in these changes, as much of the ‘mainstream’ discourse around ARC Raiders in the weeks following launch focused on its use of AI voice acting.
It wasn’t only media reporting on the backlash. Players also took issue with the voices, criticising odd inflections in dialogue that sounded robotic and strange. AI-generated voice acting isn’t always obvious, and the technology is improving by the month, but there is still a nuance that it lacks that listeners can detect.
AI-generated dialogue has a certain oddness or off-putting nature that players respond to, whether they can actively identify it or not.
While Söderlund makes clear that Embark’s use of AI voices was only ever a time-saving method, it does appear the deficiencies of this particular technology have been better understood since the game’s launch, and that changes have been made to address them, in part.
Hopefully, there is a bigger lesson here for Embark Studios as it continues to expand ARC Raiders and turns attention to its next major projects.
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