ARC Raiders Developers Replace Some AI Voices with Live Actors
Although ARC Raiders has become a hit with many players, it hasn't escaped criticism — a recurring gripe was the heavy use of generative AI for character voiceovers.
Apparently that pushed the team to act. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund explained they’re gradually swapping out some AI lines in favor of performances recorded by live actors.
We pay actors for recording time and keep working with many of them on later updates. For some less-critical lines—mostly things used by the tagging system—we also pay for the right to license their voices.
After release we've gone back and re-recorded certain lines with real voices; the improvement is obvious. A living professional actor sounds better than AI, plain and simple.
AI is treated mainly as a production aid: devs can test 15 different takes without booking studio hrs, then pick what to record. It’s a workflow shortcut, not a substitute for performers. We don’t think people should just be swapped out for AI.
Patrick Söderlund
The controversy didn’t stop the game from selling well. In just 3.5 mo the project landed in more than 14M users’ libraries.
You can play ARC Raiders, with its gradually more human-sounding lines, on PC (Steam, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5. There’s no Russian VO, but all text is translated.