Arc Raiders Used AI, Confirms Embark Studios, Which Explains and Defends the Choice

To develop Arc Raiders, the team at Embark Studios decided to use AI for certain parts of the project. The studio’s CCO has explained and defended this decision.

In the past two weeks, some fans of Arc Raiders have shared videos accusing the developer of trying to replace voice actors with AI-generated voices.

However, Stefan Strandberg, CCO and co-founder of Embark Studios, clarified that the developer did not use generative AI to create the shooter Arc Raiders. The only AI technology used during development was text-to-speech for voice synthesis.

The CCO’s Comments on AI Use in Arc Raiders

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Strandberg confirmed that Arc Raiders includes the same amount of AI content as The Finals.

“We use a combination of recordings of real actors and TTS,” Strandberg explained. “So that’s true for this game as well.”

He also tried to ease fans’ concerns, assuring them that the studio is not trying to replace human workers with technology.

“There’s no end goal in replacing any actors,” Strandberg said, “because there’s something fantastical that happens when you bring real actors in, and they are contributing to the lore, as well, of this game world.”

According to Strandberg, AI-based voice synthesis is part of the studio’s strategy to aim higher.

“We are trying to maximize what we can, being a small team trying to get make rich worlds right, but still staying small,” he explained. “But we don’t use generative AI in other domains across the game.”

So far, the criticism does not seem to have slowed down the game’s success.

In fact, Arc Raiders appears to have launched strongly, with servers struggling to handle the high number of players.