Review embargoes for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown lifted on Thursday, and while the game has been receiving positive receptions from many outlets, one outlet noticed something strange with one of the game’s NPCs. According to IGN, a minor NPC in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is voiced using text-to-speech (TTS) as opposed to a real person.
To check for sure, IGN recreated the voice from the game using a free online TTS program which produced eerily similar results.
When reached out for comment on the issue, Ubisoft confirmed the use of TTS in a rather lengthy statement.
“During the development process of a game, some teams use multiple placeholder assets, including text to speech voiceover, until final dubbing is delivered,” the publisher told IGN. “The English version of these 8 lines of text for this character were not properly implemented but will be swapped out and updated with an upcoming patch.
“Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is fully voice-overed in English, French, Spanish, German and Farsi with more than 12,000 lines in total. It is also subtitled in Italian, Portuguese-Brazilian, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Polish and Japanese.“
The fix, according to IGN, is said to be coming later this month or in early February.
The discovery and posting of the TTS-voiced NPC in the game comes after SAG-AFTRA reached an agreement on AI use for video game voice overs.
What are your thoughts on an NPC using text-to-speech in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown? For more Insider Gaming, check out the preview trailer for season 2 of the Halo TV series.
