Modders use AI to give Skyrim's Dragonborn the voice of Master Chief, and I am once again asking if this is actually legal

pcgamer.com:

Skyrim can feel pretty long in the tooth these days. Although the game gets re-released once every four months, it originally came out in 2011, and there are plenty of design quirks lurking in its Gamebryo frame that can make it hard to get into if you're used to modern, lavish productions.

Take, for example, the silent protagonist. Wouldn't it be better if we could hear the Dragonborn inflect and emote? Wouldn't it be better if classic lines like «On second thought, never mind» were delivered with the full range of the human larynx? Wouldn't it be better if the game were literally voiced by Master Chief from Halo?

Well, dreams do come true, because thanks to the questionable power of AI voice generation, modders have been hard at work asking if they 'can' and not if they 'should'. The Master Chief Voicepack for Skyrim(opens in new tab) is just one of many, many AI-synthesised voice mods that a modder called FearTCB has cooked up in recent months. You can also play using Geralt's voice(opens in new tab), Kratos'(opens in new tab), Ciri's(opens in new tab), or the echoey, booming tones of Morrowind's Dagoth Ur(opens in new tab), plus others.

It works unnervingly well, in no small part because the neutral tone that Skyrim's writers adopted for the Dragonborn's dialogue doesn't require much emotional range from the AI, and I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't equal parts amused and impressed by the effect. Hearing John 117 The Master Chief interrogate a lizard barmaid about the rumours she's heard lately feels both correct and beautiful.

This isn't the first time modders have summoned AI spectres to voice Bethesda games. As we speak, dedicated Morrowind fans are working on voicing that game's reams of dialogue(opens in new