Embark Replaces AI Dialogue in ARC Raiders With Human Voice Actors After Controversy

Embark Studios has officially confirmed that it has replaced parts of its AI-generated dialogue with human voice actors in ARC Raiders, following players’ feedback after the game’s October launch. The company reportedly made the changes after players pointed out issues with immersion, especially around text-to-speech dialogue.

ARC Raiders gets human voice upgrade after AI backlash

In an interview with GameIndustry.biz last week, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund admitted that the decision ultimately comes down to quality. He noted that professional voice actors still deliver better results than AI, highlighting a noticeable gap in performance during key story moments.

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. 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.

As far as changes are concerned, the studio is now working on upgrading selected parts of the dialogue with paid voice actors. That said, Embark has not confirmed any plans to fully replace all AI-generated voice content at this point.

We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices. There is a quality difference. 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.

Embark also clarified that while AI was used for some dialogue elements, no generative AI was involved in creating the game’s visuals. The art direction, which has received praise, remains fully handled by human artists.

It’s worth noting that AI has been a hot topic in the gaming industry for a while now, especially after the Clair Obscur: Experdition 33 fiasco. To catch you up, the RPG developed by Sandfall Interactive had two Indie Game Awards wins quietly revoked.

The title originally won Game of the Year and Best Debut Game, but organizers later pulled both awards following concerns over alleged generative AI use. However, game director Guillaume Broche later addressed the concerns and pushed back on claims that AI played a role in the finalized game.