New World is currently enjoying rising player numbers. Some players have noticed how poorly some NPCs are voiced in the new zone Nighthaven. Did Amazon Games rely on Artificial Intelligence here?
What are players criticizing? Since the start of Season 10 of New World, players have been discussing the voice acting of the NPCs in the MMORPG.
- Riflebird writes on Steam: “It’s so terrible now. What happened? Did they go for AI or hire a cheaper voice recording company? When I spoke to Morgaine, I initially thought the voice outputs were placeholders they forgot to replace, but every voice output in the new zone is awful. Come on, Amazon, don’t be so stingy.”
- GenericBox believes on Steam in AI recordings: “AI was definitely used, as soon as I spoke to Morgaine, something was off, but the first quest giver Lynette was even worse! Definitely AI, she doesn’t even pronounce the words correctly or articulate them properly.”
- ekylok criticizes on Reddit: “What’s up with the AI syncing??? Sounds so bad… What is this?! I knew about the voice actor strike, but this is atrocious.”
- SMC540 fears on Reddit the worst: “I fear this will happen more and more in the future. Destiny Rising also did this, and it’s super annoying.”
Why is the criticism coming only now? New World has always had a rather mixed quality in the voice acting of NPCs. At launch, this was certainly due to the difficult development phase and the late focus on PvE and story content.
The examples mentioned in the discussions, such as Morgaine or Lynette, come from the new content that went live with Season 10. Additionally, New World is currently experiencing a small hype phase, resulting in significantly more players going through the quests than it had been the case in previous years.
Amazon Games responds to AI accusations
How is Amazon Games responding to the criticism? A spokesperson for Amazon Games has commented on the accusations to the website massivelyop.com. However, they only address one of the points of criticism:
All voice recordings in New World: Aeternum were made by humans and not by AI.
There was no comment on the underlying criticism that the AI accusation is based on: Why do the voice recordings of the new content sound so amateurish? One possible answer: Although the voice actor strike ended months ago, we might still be seeing the effects of the strike here.
Voice recordings take place parallel to the actual development and often require a lot of time in large RPGs. Due to the eerie theme of the new zone, it seems likely that Amazon Games wanted to release the new season in the Halloween month. That may have only been possible with compromises in the quality of the voice actors.
Rising player numbers, server queues, positive discussions about new content – New World rises unexpectedly like a phoenix from the ashes. MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz analyzes the sudden rebirth of the MMORPG from Amazon Games: New World turns around after difficult years and delights its community – the reason is quite simple
