Embark pledges to “be better over time” when it comes to AI voices in Arc Raiders

The only thing dragging Arc Raiders down for me are the weird, offkilter raider callouts in mission, which sound like text-to-speech AI voices. They sound like that because that’s what they are, with a lot of the mission callouts and contextual player pings. It’s an obvious money saving decision due to the massive number of items you can scavenge, each of them needing some kind of voiced callout. 

Unfortunately, beyond the moral implications of using this technology when there are hundreds of talented actors who could do a much better job, it’s immersion breaking. To make it worse, Arc Raiders otherwise sports some of the best audio design I’ve ever heard in a video game. Every machine sounds terrifying, every action a player makes can be picked out from the clutter to give you the information you need in a fight. Those weird callouts feel out of place in what’s otherwise award-winning work. 

I asked executive producer Aleksander Grøndal why the team approached the game that way and if they have any plans to improve things. 

“So some of the voices are text to speech, as we've had in other games as well, but most of our voices are based on captures of the real actors doing the thing,” Grøndal says. “So it's a combination. It's where to use the best. Any conversation, any longer thing is recorded, and the shorter things make it possible for us to do lines that we weren't able to do before. So it's a balancing act, I think, with how we use that. Of course, if we feel like some of them are off, we need to fix that. If it breaks the immersion, that's not what it's supposed to do. It's supposed to help immersion.” 

It’s worth noting the language Grøndal uses — some voice lines that aren’t text to speech are “based on captures of the real actors”, which could suggest further AI usage. Still, if the community is loud enough about it, Embark seems open to changing how it approaches VO in its games. 

“We're still learning on this, and I'm sure we can try to be better in those aspects over time,” Grøndal says. “We see the game as being a starting point. And I think Embark has shown and has the aspirations to try to push things forward. We're on this constant journey to improve and adapt.” 

Embark also detailed plans for voluntary wipes in Arc Raiders.

Arc Raiders launches for Xbox, PS5, and PC on October 30.