Arc Raiders was released to plenty of plaudits in October, with both critics and players praising Embark's refreshing take on a genre that primarily catered to a more hardcore and niche audience. Arc Raiders balanced the stakes of something like Escape from Tarkov with more emergent gameplay through features like proximity chat and the ability to revive downed opponents.
However, one of the sticking points for some was Embark's use of AI-generated voices in Arc Raiders. The game uses voice generation in the ping system, e.g. characters saying the name of an item once it's been pinged. The studio's rationale was that when items are added in the future, they can use the voice set to generate lines about each new item without having to re-record anything.
This remains contentious despite the popularity of the game, and it appears Embark chief Patrick Söderlund is starting to come around to the idea of just using real actors in the future.
"We re-recorded some lines post-launch and made them with real voices," Söderlund told GamesIndustry.Biz. "There is a quality difference. A real professional actor is better than AI; that's just how it is."
He also reiterated that Embark...
