The name of a long-running League of Legends character has been mispronounced in a new trailer, prompting some misplaced confusion around AI voice acting.
The trailer, posted on the League of Legends: Wild Rift Twitter account, showcases Sivir, a battle mistress who can quickly cut groups of enemies down to size with her bladed boomerang, create magical barriers to block enemy attacks, and provide a boost to allies movement speed. All in all, she's a helpful lady to have on the battlefield, though her impressive abilities have been overshadowed by the fact her name isn’t pronounced properly in the latest trailer.
No one commands the desert like this battle mistress. Experience her prowess in the Rift starting November 24th 🏜️ pic.twitter.com/A5kh3AnAukNovember 24, 2023
Sivir's been around since the game's original launch in 2009, but instead of pronouncing it as Siv-ear, like it's supposed to be, she's instead referred to as Severe. This led to speculation that Riot had used AI to introduce the character to the series' mobile offering, and fans were less than impressed. In the comments, they urged the developer to stop using AI and keep to the traditional method of hiring real people for the job. "There are actual humans who do voiceover for a living. Hire them," one League of Legends fan wrote.
As it turns out, it wasn't AI at all. In reality, it was a very real voice actor who was given no guidance from Riot. According to prominent LoL commentator @MedicCasts, "the voice actor tweeted (and has since deleted) saying their voice was heavily edited and they were given no direction".
Re: post earlier on the voice acting on the wild rift post.The voice actor tweeted (and has since deleted) saying their voice was heavily edited and they were given no direction.Taking down the original post as my intent was to highlight AI which isn't the case here it seems.November 24, 2023
League of Legends fans have since come out in support of the voice actor and are rather baffled by the whole situation. "Hiring a voice actor and giving them no direction is a pretty poor move", said one LoL player. "Well, this boggles how Riot managed to edit the voice so heavily that every intonation sounds the same/similar to AI," wrote another.
While it wasn't AI on this occasion, with the use of the technology on the rise, we could very well see AI-generated voices adopted more and more in games. Recently, several voice actors from prominent games such as Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Starfield hit out at Microsoft for its latest AI efforts, which are capable of generating character dialogue. Additionally, the new Naruto fighting game has received backlash over a questionable redub that some suspect is the result of AI manipulation.
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