Not long into its surprise debut, The Finals has come under fire by some players about its AI voice-acted characters. Previously, The Finals developer Embark Studio clarified the game will use AI text-to-speech to produce lines “in just a matter of hours rather than months” to cut costs. However, even though the developer saves money this way, multiple players are still against the AI and encourage others to “skip” The Finals entirely due to this.
Players being vocal against the AI voice acting in The Finals have turned to the game’s Steam forums after its release on Thursday, December 7. Many have expressed the harmful trend AI can present in the video game industry and urged other players to not support the FPS game for using the technology.
“Don’t support this trash,” states one user on the forums. “The game is using AI voices for the narrators, don’t support this studio.” Another player on Steam alleges Embark Studio doesn’t “care for the industry that VAs put into their work by replacing it with AI” and stresses that real voice actors can put life into characters, unlike AI.
In Embark Studio’s defense, players who are not against AI claim that voice acting shouldn’t matter because The Finals is “just a multiplayer shooting game.”
“AI assets, so skip it,” argues another user. “I was rooting for this game but cannot support this harmful trend.”
Embark Studio mentioned during its official podcast for The Finals that AI voice acting would be used into the foreseeable future to focus on game quality. At the time, the team received a landslide of backlash from voice actors over the decision.
As of this article’s writing, the developer hasn’t addressed comments from players against AI, but there are no signs yet pointing to Embark changing its stance on this matter during development.
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