Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches next week. While we really dug the game, there's one odd detail that stuck out: one of the game's minor NPCs will be voiced by a text-to-speech program at launch, seemingly because someone forgot to record and add a human being's voice for the role.
I’m reminded of old video games where they had the developers help out with the voice acting. Like, couldn’t you do this here? Just have someone who happens to have a high quality microphone do the lines? Maybe even pay a starving artist on one of those “voice acting for hire” sites?
I get that deadlines are usually way too tight on games, but this is just poor quality control. I guess that is the AAA games industry noways though.
I can believe it being an accident. The character only has 8 lines of dialogue and it seems (if I am reading right) it’s just the English dub that has this problem? He’s voiced normally in the 4 other fully dubbed languages. It’s truly a bizarre thing to have happened though
I feel like if this was truly an accident because the character was overlooked, then wouldn’t they just not have any voice at all? Even copy/pasting dialogue into some (free, according to the article) software and then inserting it into the game takes some effort.
The article says that often during development they’ll put in simple text to speech stuff for characters as a placeholder. I’d imagine to make sure certain audio hooks work and sound isnt broken
A bad voice probably also just feels much better and complete than having no voice at all. At least based on the observations I’ve made when adding sound effects to my games as a hobbyist. A silent game just feels bad.
While we really dug the game (you can check out our review for more on that), there’s one odd detail that stuck out we can’t help but give its own article: one of the game’s minor NPCs will be voiced by a text-to-speech program at launch, seemingly because someone — probably Ubisoft — forgot to record and add a human being’s voice for the role.
what a… weird thing to have happen. i’m not sure what the utility of it would be for one minor NPC but this being an accident honestly strains charitability, i think
Yep, looks really suspect. Even if it’s true that they forgot to get someone to record the lines, it does seem implausible that they couldn’t source any voice actor (or even someone on their own staff) to record the dialogue and get it added to the game, even at short notice.
Not saying this was a honest mistake, but I do see how that could happen:
Game story gets written
Dialogs are worked on
TTS versions of all dialogs are generated
Once they get approved, talent is cast
Talent is scheduled to record the dialogs and get paid
Final dialogs get included in the game
Knowing how game studios love to push everyone into “rush mode” the months before launch, I can see how, for a minor NPC, someone could have forgotten to cast and/or book a recording of some dialogs… while everyone is getting pressured to release NOW OR ELSE!!1!
Honestly, I wonder how many minor NPCs in games have been TTS all along, and nobody noticed or cared.
Now, on a scale from 1 to 10, please tell us how strongly you feel about this. And, hypothetically, whether you’d mind if a few dozens more NPC were like that too."
“On a scale from 0% to 500%, how much more would you pay for a game where main characters used [insert your favorite actors/people]'s AI cloned voices?”
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I’m reminded of old video games where they had the developers help out with the voice acting. Like, couldn’t you do this here? Just have someone who happens to have a high quality microphone do the lines? Maybe even pay a starving artist on one of those “voice acting for hire” sites?
I get that deadlines are usually way too tight on games, but this is just poor quality control. I guess that is the AAA games industry noways though.
I can believe it being an accident. The character only has 8 lines of dialogue and it seems (if I am reading right) it’s just the English dub that has this problem? He’s voiced normally in the 4 other fully dubbed languages. It’s truly a bizarre thing to have happened though
Character so inconsequential, they forgot to hire a VA and record the lines.
Lots of companies “accidentally” including artificially generated works in their games/books/ads lately.
They probably pre-write the apologies.
They just have AI do it.
I feel like if this was truly an accident because the character was overlooked, then wouldn’t they just not have any voice at all? Even copy/pasting dialogue into some (free, according to the article) software and then inserting it into the game takes some effort.
The article says that often during development they’ll put in simple text to speech stuff for characters as a placeholder. I’d imagine to make sure certain audio hooks work and sound isnt broken
A bad voice probably also just feels much better and complete than having no voice at all. At least based on the observations I’ve made when adding sound effects to my games as a hobbyist. A silent game just feels bad.
what a… weird thing to have happen. i’m not sure what the utility of it would be for one minor NPC but this being an accident honestly strains charitability, i think
Trial balloon.
This character is the thin edge of a very large wedge.
Yep, looks really suspect. Even if it’s true that they forgot to get someone to record the lines, it does seem implausible that they couldn’t source any voice actor (or even someone on their own staff) to record the dialogue and get it added to the game, even at short notice.
Not saying this was a honest mistake, but I do see how that could happen:
Knowing how game studios love to push everyone into “rush mode” the months before launch, I can see how, for a minor NPC, someone could have forgotten to cast and/or book a recording of some dialogs… while everyone is getting pressured to release NOW OR ELSE!!1!
Honestly, I wonder how many minor NPCs in games have been TTS all along, and nobody noticed or cared.
"We didn’t mean to do this, honest!
Now, on a scale from 1 to 10, please tell us how strongly you feel about this. And, hypothetically, whether you’d mind if a few dozens more NPC were like that too."
“On a scale from 0% to 500%, how much more would you pay for a game where main characters used [insert your favorite actors/people]'s AI cloned voices?”