In a recent interview with Games Industry, Embark Studios head Patrick Söderlund clarified the situation surrounding the controversy the studio is currently facing regarding AI voice acting in the game. In the interview, Söderlund claimed that voice actors are paid for their time and rights, and that the studio has brought back members of the cast to re-record lines in order to reduce the amount of AI-generated audio.
“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 said. “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.”
“We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices,” he continued. “There is a quality difference. A real professional actor is better than AI; that’s just how it is.” ARC Raiders is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
The game’s details:
Enlist
ARC Raiders is a cooperative third-person shooter where you and your squad of Raiders unite to resist the onslaught of ARC—a ruthless, mechanized threat descending from space.
You play as one of the Raiders, a rogue group of resistance fighters. With the help of a patchwork early warning system, you fight to protect our home against enemies dropping from orbit. ARC is faceless and unfeeling, but no one could accuse ARC of being unresponsive. In fact, ARC responds to resistance with ever-increasing destruction.
Resist
As a Raider, you know that defeating ARC requires more than simply pointing and shooting a gun, and more than one person trying to be a hero. When ARC is around, lone wolves never make it very far.
As underdogs, we need to believe in something bigger than our own strength, in something unapologetically human. That’s why we come together. United amid the unlikelihood of success, what seemed implausible may just become the best course of action. So, by all means, come prepared and plan ahead, but sometimes you just have to wing it.
Jump right into the fray in a free-to-play world.
Scavenge the ruins of the past. Wield tools and gadgets to outsmart the enemy. Use on-the-fly tactics, your surroundings, and physics to your advantage. If you and your squad play well together, one day the stars may again become beacons of hope, instead of omens of oblivion.
Reimagine the Third-Person Shooter – Go beyond simply matching ammo to a weapon. Experience action where combat demands unrehearsed creativity.
Reimagine Cooperation – ARC pursues you relentlessly, but together you can overcome these faceless foes. Fight, flee, and fine-tune, shoulder to shoulder with your squad.
