Arc Raiders Sparks Fresh Debate Over AI-Assisted Voice Work

Arc Raiders and The Finals developer Embark Studios is back under the same spotlight that chased it in late 2023. The studio disclosed the use of AI-assisted technology in its new extraction shooter, and the familiar reaction has followed. The conversation is not as volatile as it was at the height of The Finals uproar, though it has far from cooled. The subject remains uncomfortable territory in a business still sorting out the boundaries between technological efficiency and human craft, and Arc Raiders has walked right into the middle of it.

Arc Raiders launched on October 30 across PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC with a confident pitch: a more welcoming path into the extraction shooter space, less punishing than Escape from Tarkov, brisker in pace, and big on clarity. For many players, that thesis holds. The game sits at a strong “very positive” rating on Steam with more than 8,000 reviews. Yet the positive first impression has collided with a familiar disclosure on the game’s Steam page, stating that during development, Embark used procedural and AI-based tools to assist content creation. The same caveat appeared during The Finals’ rollout one year ago. It has proved just as magnetic this time.

Arc Raiders shot past 100,000 concurrent Steam players, minutes after launch, briefly topping the platform’s charts and signaling heavy demand for Embark Studios’ extraction shooter. Then, it becomes 264,673 players on the second day.

The Finals’ incident set the context. During that game’s open beta in October 2023, comments surfaced via VGC from the game’s audio designer referencing AI tools in vocal production. The backlash came quickly. Concerns ranged from labor displacement to diminished performance quality. Embark responded in a statement to IGN at the time, stressing that professional voice actors were hired and that text-to-speech technology served as a supplement to accelerate production. Efficiency, not replacement, was the argument.

Arc Raiders design director Virgil Watkins repeated that position in an interview with PCGamesN this week, saying the game does not “in no way use generative AI whatsoever” while confirming use of the same text-to-speech pipeline implemented in The Finals. Watkins framed the system as a tool for generating in-game callouts, such as item names and navigational prompts, without repeatedly hauling actors back into booths for incremental updates. It is a utilitarian justification, and it tracks with the studio’s line from last year.

Embark sent a statement reinforcing that stance. The company described a split process, where key character scenes rely on traditional voice-over sessions and reactive or systemic lines lean on text-to-speech generation based on actor-licensed voice models. That hybrid model is meant to retain emotional depth while gaining scalable utility. The studio again rejected the idea that removing actors from production is a goal, saying the technology has instead enabled new ways to collaborate.

Early reaction has spread across familiar channels. Social media comments and Steam threads range from supportive to dismissive to outright hostile. One Reddit post that gained traction called the AI-assisted lines “a stain on an otherwise incredible game,” criticizing the execution rather than the ethics. Others pointed to specific characters, arguing that certain voices feel thin or synthetic. Not everyone is taking up arms. Responses under the same thread include a steadier perspective from players who say they do not mind, pointing to Embark’s practice of contracting voice actors and arguing that this is likely the shape of modern production. The industry learned through The Finals that arguments about quality can cut both ways: some critics hear a lack of timbre and timing, others barely notice.

There is a through-line between the two releases, and it raises a broader point about tone and timing. The Finals provoked a sharper reaction, as voice actors and writers across multiple creative fields sounded alarms around AI tools and union protections. The climate remains tense, though Arc Raiders benefits from a quieter launch window and a player base more focused on extraction mechanics than its internal tooling. Still, those conditions rarely last. Trends in Hollywood and shifts in union bargaining structures keep the subject warm, and Embark’s candid approach means this conversation is likely to surface each time the studio ships something new.

No meaningful boycott has formed, and user sentiment remains positive overall, judging by early Steam response. Yet the episode sits at the front end of a wider transition in game audio and production workflows. Studios weighing similar paths will be watching the reaction closely. For now, Arc Raiders finds itself in a position familiar to many ambitious online shooters: managing success, maintaining goodwill, and explaining the machinery behind its world without letting the debate swallow the game itself. The resentment is not universal, yet the friction is real, and the precedent set by The Finals will follow Embark whether it wants the attention or not.