Embark Studios' new arena-battle FPS The Finals has been getting a lot of attention recently, but it's not all good news.
During a recent podcast, the game's audio designers Carl Strandberg and Andreas Almström mentioned how AI and text-to-speech were used on commentary and other vocalisations in the game.
This discovery didn't go down so well within the game's community, and now Embark has provided an official statement to Eurogamer insisting its end goal isn't to make games "without actors":
"We use a combination of recorded voice audio and audio generated via TTS tools in our games, depending on the context. Sometimes, recording real scenes where actors get together - allowing character chemistry and conflict to shape the outcome - is something that adds depth to our game worlds that technology can't emulate. Other times, especially when it relates to contextual in-game action call-outs, TTS allows us to have tailored VO where we otherwise wouldn't e.g. due to speed of implementation.
"In the instances we use TTS in The Finals, it's always based on real voices. In the Open Beta, it is based on a mix of professional voice actors and temp voices from Embark employees. Making games without actors isn’t an end goal for Embark and TTS technology has introduced new ways for us to work together."
The Finals is currently running an open beta on all platforms including Xbox Series X|S from now until 5th November.
How do you feel about games using AI like this? Give us your thoughts below.
[source eurogamer.net]
Comments 17
"AI will take the boring jobs no one wants," they said. "People will do all the fun, creative jobs still," they said.
Perhaps this will be unpopular opinion, I don't have a problem with AI voice overs in a game. Sure, maybe not for full cut scenes, and not in big budget games, but especially if it's a smaller dev studio I think it's fine.
One day we'll probably have all voice acting done by AI. Who knows how far in the future that will be? 🤔🤷🏻
I don't think it matters if they use AI or not. Its not as if this is a narrative driven story that really only an voice actor can inject the level of emotion and/or nuance necessary to convey a line of dialogue in the right context for the scene.
AI can still suit parts in Narrative games too of course - a Ship's Computer or AI/Robot companions for example. These would likely use 'AI' in reality anyway - and that includes Cortana too...
To be honest, I think I prefer AI voiceovers than I do randomly generated or procedural content.
At least the developers are still writing the phrases that are being spoken and curating the sound of the voices through tools to adjust them to sound as they would like, so there is human input.
But this is probably only the beginning and in future we will see the AI doing the creative parts which I don’t like so much.
I remember still back when Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion came out and they had shelled out to have Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and Terrance Stamp. And then had a total of 5 other voice actors for the entire game.
State of the game was baffling because of all the issues but being a big budget game.
Back then everyone was talking about how they were looking forward to when voice synthesizing advanced enough to replace actors. So that we could have any number of voices without really messing with the game budget much.
Seems we've flipflopped on that apparently.
Imagine if all indie games could do this.
Maybe not the end goal, but definitely the current goal. Once the precedence is set, you can say goodbye to voice actors. No company is going to want to publish a game that costs more to pay real people if they can save money with A.I. They'll hide behind "fiduciary duty" and since most people think that's a legit excuse, it'll be allowed until there's a strike.
I played the beta and I can say the quality of the voice is very good for it being AI generated. Another favourable point is that for some devs with smaller budgets, this can be a good solution to reduce costs of making a game or focusing the money in other key areas. Technology will always replace some jobs and if the end result is good with AI, it is just stupid having to have a voice actor just to give him a job.
As far as I'm understanding they're not generating voices using AI, but using actual recording for VAs and employees on a text-to-speech tool do make it says whatever they want.
Embrace it, because this is a change that can't be stopped. Industry will never support paying more for a service that can be done easier and cheaper through a computer.
I'm okay with using AI to aid game development as I think dev time is unreasonable in its current form. Companies cannot afford to take 6 years to build a game and if it doesn't perform well they are screwed until the next one.
I don't think AI is great yet but personally I hope it eventually does end up being a major tool in game dev.
@101Force didn't realize reading lines over and over was fun or creative.
@Raw_Dawg : You don't think voice acting performances contain a creative element? You don't think voice acting is an enjoyable job?
The creative part is in writing the lines. I can't imagine any job that can be extremely repetitive being enjoyable. I think I would go crazy.
Its not about getting rid of voice actors its about getting rid of everyone lol
Get ready heard next year thr makin ai thats 100x better this is not including runway v2
@Utena-mobile happened around oct 2 2023
I hope none of the folks mad at this dev are vocaloid fans.
I think they went with a tool they could afford and still get the game out the door. Not mad about that. There is potential in AI. I wonder if it will ever get to the point that localization costs go way down. If instead of hiring voice actors across regions that AI could cover that.
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