• 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

    •  brsrklf   ( @brsrklf@jlai.lu ) 
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      5 months ago

      "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."

    •  frog 🐸   ( @frog@beehaw.org ) 
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      105 months ago

      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.

    •  jarfil   ( @jarfil@beehaw.org ) 
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      5 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.

  • 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’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 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.