Some of Arc Raiders’ AI voices have been replaced by “real professional” actors

Arc Raiders was easily one of 2025 biggest surprise hits, with the PvPvE extraction shooter having sold over 14 million copies since the game’s launch in October while continuing to see strong levels of engagement from players. Perhaps the biggest stain on the game was its use of gen-AI for its voice acting – some of which has since been replaced.

Taking part in an interview conducted by the publication Gamesindustry.biz, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund spoke on the development of Arc Raiders, its relatively small budget and the size of the team itself.

The full interview can be found HERE, but by far the most interesting part pertains to Arc Raiders’ use of gen-AI. While the team have addressed this previously, Söderlund spoke on their evolving use of the technology, stating:

“We pay our actors for all time spent with us in the booth and continue to bring many of them back as we carry on updating the game. For select usage, we also pay them for the approval to license their voices through text-to-speech for lines that aren't as essential to the immersion of the experience, mostly ping system audio.”

Despite the use of AI, Embark admits that nothing can replace a voice actor’s talent, claiming: “We re-recorded some of the lines post-launch and made them with real voices. There is a quality difference. A real professional actor is better than AI; that's just how it is.”

Söderlund continued, “We look at [AI] first and foremost as a production tool. We can test things internally. We can test 15 different lines without recording them, and then we know what to record. It's also a way for us to work, not replace actors. We don't necessarily believe in replacing humans with AI all the time.”

AI in art remains a contentious topic, and one which is changing all the time as the tech itself evolves. Here’s to hoping that eventually all of Arc Raider’s AI voices are replaced by real talent.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Arc Raiders’ use of AI? Is it distracting? Let us know down below.

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