The Finals uses AI text-to-speech because it can produce lines 'in just a matter of hours rather than months', baffles actual voice actors
A podcast by Embark Studios—creators of the upcoming FPS The Finals—has hinted that the game will be using AI voice lines for the foreseeable future. The explanation, however, has left some voice actors feeling confused, at best.
Andreas Glad and Carl Tamleht, audio designers for The Finals, were asked: «who did the voiceovers? They sound really authentic» (spoilers: that's not an opinion everyone shares). They responded: «We use AI with a few exceptions, so all the contestant voices like the barks and voiceover commentators are AI text-to-speech.» Miscellaneous voiceover stuff—grunting, pain noises, vaulting over objects—is otherwise done in-house.
«The reason that we went this route is that AI text-to-speech is finally extremely powerful. It gets us far enough in terms of quality, and allows us to be extremely reactive to new ideas … if a game designer comes up with a new idea for a game mode, we can have a voiceover representing that in just a matter of hours, instead of months.»
That explanation, however, hasn't really jived with the experience of voice actors who actually work in games. One such actor is Gianni Matragrano—who you might recognise as Gabriel from Ultrakill, though he's provided work for a wide variety of games including Genshin Impact, Gloomwood, and Evil West.
Matragrano wrote on a Twitter thread: «We are constantly banging out rush order sessions for like, within a day or two … When you need more, you can book another session. We actually make it very easy.» He goes on to reveal that he had his doubts when playing the beta, but was waiting for confirmation: «I had my suspicions but I didn't want to say anything in case I was wrong, or maybe it was at least just placeholder. But now at a big Open
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