Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund says the studio has replaced several AI-generated voice lines in Arc Raiders with recordings from professional voice actors After many players complained that the original AI voices sounded unnatural during gameplay.
Söderlund said the team noticed a clear difference in quality after switching to human actors. He admitted that professional actors perform better than AI in many cases and said the studio wants the game to feel more natural for players.
The studio had earlier supported the use of AI voices, but its approach has now changed. Söderlund explained that AI will mainly be used during development to test dialogue and different voice lines. Developers can quickly create temporary lines with AI and later bring actors in to record the final versions.
Embark also addressed concerns about how voice actors are paid when AI tools are involved. Söderlund said actors are paid for the time they spend recording in the studio. Some actors also receive payment when their voices are licensed for limited text-to-speech uses, such as short system messages or the game’s ping system.
The studio has not promised to remove every AI voice line from the game. Some AI audio may still remain in smaller or less important parts of the game.
The discussion around AI voices in games has followed Embark before. The issue also came up when the studio released The Finals. Some people in the industry have criticized the growing use of AI in voice acting.
Actor Neil Newbon, who worked on Baldur’s Gate 3, previously said that using AI voices instead of actors could harm the profession.
Even with the debate around AI voices, Arc Raiders was commercially successful after its 2025 release. Its publisher, Nexon, has earlier said that AI tools could become common in game development.
The announcement also started a discussion on Twitter (X), where players shared different opinions about the change. Some users questioned why the studio is only replacing most of the AI voice lines and not all of them. They felt this shows the company still wants to save money instead of fully hiring voice actors.
Others had a different view and said the studio should not step back from AI so quickly. According to them, AI could help game development and should be used more to show what the technology can do.
A few users also made jokes about the situation, saying that even if the voices are replaced, the scripts might still sound like they were written by AI.
Embark now says human actors will remain important for the final voice performances in the game, while AI will mainly be used to help the development process.
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