CD Projekt Red uses AI to recreate the voice of a deceased actor

Polish game developer CD Projekt RED has used AI to recreate the voice of a deceased actor. The studio reports this to Bloomberg. The Polish company had permission from the deceased actor’s family. The AI ​​was used for Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

CD Projekt has recreated the voice of Polish voice actor Miłogost Reczek using AI. Reczek played ripperdoc Viktor Vektor in the Polish version of Cyberpunk 2077, which was released in 2020. He died in 2021. However, the character makes a return in the new Phantom Liberty expansion of Cyberpunk 2077. The character’s new texts could therefore still be recorded with Reczek’s voice using AI.

The studio tells in a statement to Bloomberg to have received permission from Reczek’s family. The company had considered having Viktor Vektor’s voice completely revoiced, but ultimately decided against it. According to Mikołaj Szwed, localization director of CD Projekt, the studio did not want to do that because Reczek was “one of the best Polish voice actors.” Szwed calls his performance in Cyberpunk “excellent.”

CD Projekt hired a new voice actor for Phantom Liberty to record the character’s new lines. An application called Respeecher was then used to replace the new actor’s voice with Reczek’s. Phantom Liberty was released at the end of September for the PS5, Xbox Series X and S and PC.

Update, October 14: Title has been changed. Title was previously: ‘Cyberpunk 2077 uses AI to recreate the voice of a deceased actor’. Thanks to rockney.