Cyberpunk 2077’s recently released DLC Phantom Liberty uses an AI-edited voice to recreate the voice of an actor who passed away, CD Projekt said recently in a statement. The voice of late Polish voice actor Miłogost Reczek, who died in 2021 and played Doctor Viktor Vektor, was reproduced by an AI algorithm for the Polish-language release of Phantom Liberty.
Vektor was a non-player character but he was a part of several campaigns and side quests. CD Projekt confirmed that it received permission from Reczek’s family to use AI to recreate his voice. The developer used voice cloning technology provided by Kyiv-based startup Respeecher for recording Reczek's voice.
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CD Projekt Used Respeecher To Reproduce Late NPC Actor's Voice
Since Respeecher does not just overdub lines but changes the speaker's voice. So the actor playing Vektor in Phantom Liberty, Janusz Zadura, had to emulate Reczek's acting style of speaking. News of CD Projekt using AI for Reczek’s performance surfaced a few weeks ago, but CD Projekt Red only recently released a statement explaining its decision. Localization director Mikołaj Szwed says that the company considered re-recording the late actor's bit for the original game and DLC with a different actor, but decided against it.
“We contacted his family for permission to create an algorithm from Miłek’s voice that could then be used over the performance of another actor, who would record Viktor Vektor’s new voice lines,” Szwed said. “Miłek’s sons were very supportive and gave us their permission to move forward with the project,” Szwed says. In related news, CD Projekt studio head Adam Badowski said during an investors presentation recently that the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077 is officially underway. He confirmed that Phantom Liberty will be the one and only expansion to Cyberpunk 2077 and the company is now working towards a full-scale sequel.
"We decided not to develop any more add-ons for CP2077, but rather to start designing a full sequel to the game under the Project Orion codename," Badowski explained during the presentation. "This project is on the conceptual design level right now, and it's going to be designed by a team of veterans who were responsible for designing Cyberpunk 2077 and designing Phantom Liberty."