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.
  •  jarfil   ( @jarfil@beehaw.org ) 
    10•6 months ago

    Not saying this was a honest mistake, but I do see how that could happen:

    1. Game story gets written
    2. Dialogs are worked on
    3. TTS versions of all dialogs are generated
    4. Once they get approved, talent is cast
    5. Talent is scheduled to record the dialogs and get paid
    6. 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.