AI Restores a Legend's Voice After a Real-Life Health Battle

CD Projekt Red is using AI to solve a moving real-world problem in the upcoming Witcher 3 expansion, 'Songs of the Past.' The original Polish voice actor for Geralt, Jacek Rozenek, suffered a stroke in 2019 that permanently changed his voice. For the new content, Rozenek performs all his lines, but an AI model from Ukrainian firm Respeecher transforms his current, gruffer performance to match the tone and timbre of his original recordings from 2015, ensuring narrative consistency.

For players, this means Geralt's iconic voice in the new expansion will seamlessly blend with the decade-old audio from the base game, preserving the character's identity. The studio emphasizes this is a 'special case' done with the actor's full consent, framing it as an ethical application of AI to overcome a health-related challenge. It highlights how technology, when used responsibly, can solve deeply personal creative problems, while the English voice actor, Doug Cockle, needed no such intervention.