In an era where there are many negative opinions about replacing voice actors with artificial intelligence, CD Projekt RED showed how to use the latest technology in an excellent way. The company used artificial intelligence to create new dialogue for an actor who died before the setting of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.
Jason Schreier at Bloomberg confirmed an interesting situation regarding the production of the only story expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. CD Projekt RED used artificial intelligence so that one of the charismatic actors appearing in the game would not change.
CD Projekt RED used AI technology to develop new Victor dialogues – great dubbing actor Miłogost Reczek died in 2021, but appeared a year ago in Cyberpunk 2077.
The creators revealed that they had permission from the actor’s family to use artificial intelligence to prepare new lines. CD Projekt RED even considered replacing the actor with someone else – the company wanted to re-record all of Victor’s dialogue from the base game and the expansion.
Mikołaj Szwed, CD Projekt’s translation manager, mentioned this in an interview with Bloomberg ‘He didn’t like that approach’because Reczek “He was one of the best Polish voice actors”.
CD Projekt contacted the family and obtained consent, then used Ukrainian voice-reproduction software called Respeecher to create an algorithm that changed dialogues to sound like the deceased actor’s statements.
“This way we can maintain his performance in the game and pay tribute to his great performance as Victor Victor,” the Swede said.
It should be noted that since last month, voice actors in video games have agreed to go on strike ahead of negotiations with game producers – one problematic issue being the use of artificial intelligence to reproduce the work of stars without permission. However, as you can see, with the right approach and full support, technology can be used for something good.
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