The publisher of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Ubisoft, has explained why a minor NPC will have a synthetic voice at the game release.
Prince of Persia returns with a new game called The Lost Crown. The reception of the revival, scheduled for January 18, is generally positive, but that does not mean that it will be released without problems.
Those who tested the game demo noticed something special about one of the NPCs in The Lost Crown. Despite the game’s full voice acting, the tree spirit Kalux had a voice eerily similar to a widely used text-to-speech program.
In response to questions from IGN, Ubisoft confirmed the use of the program. However, they insisted that this was an error that will be fixed in a future update.
Ubisoft explains Prince of Persia’s synthetic lines and promises future fix
After noticing Kalux’s strange voice, IGN contacted both SIDE UK, the studio that handled Prince’s dubbing of Persia: The Lost Crown, and Ubisoft.
SIDE confirmed that it did not use text-to-speech for the game, but “did not have visibility into any other voice design plans, TTS or otherwise, that Ubisoft had for the game.”
Ubisoft’s response confirmed the use of text-to-speech, but only as a temporary solution. “The English version of these 8 lines of text for this character was not implemented correctly. “, they explained. This explanation makes sense, because the use of temporary elements is common in game development.
However, it is unclear whether any lines were actually recorded for Kalux. While the game’s credits credit everyone who worked on the title, no one is listed for Kalux.
Additionally, although The Lost Crowne will benefit from a day one patch, this line will not be part of it. Ubisoft has confirmed that the Kalux fix will have to wait until “late January or early February.”
Whether it’s a problem integrating the lines or Ubisoft overlooked this NPC, this seems like a simple mistake. However, this comes at a time when the use of technology in games, particularly AI, is under scrutiny.
Earlier this week, SAG-AFTRA announced a controversial deal with AI company Replica Studios. It concerns the use of AI-created voices in video games. Although the union called it a “fair and ethical agreement,” many disagreed. The agreement has been criticized by voice actors who say they were not consulted as SAG-AFTRA claims.
Although this is not the case for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, it should be noted that Ubisoft is among the first developers to confirm plans to use the Nvidia Avatar Cloud Engine. This is an AI program for creating video game characters, presented during CES (Consumer Electronics Show).
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