The upcoming release of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will be the subject of either memes or concerns from fans, and this is because of the bug on Ubisoft's end where an NPC has a robotic voice. This is not exactly fitting in the game, especially as Prince of Persia is best known to center on an early civilization theme where there are no robots yet invented during their time.
Ubisoft has already confirmed this bug in this specific NPC, and although the character only has a few lines, it was said to be out of place in the game.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Has an NPC Bug with Robot Voice
Ubisoft
An NPC named "Kalux" from the upcoming Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is voiced by a robot, and this is the new bug that was discovered by IGN from the game. Kalux is a tree spirit that gamers would encounter soon, and according to Ubisoft, the NPC only has short dialogues with the audience, with only eight lines of text to say in its appearance.
Ubisoft used the TTS program typically used by Twitch streamers and other platforms, and it is an online service available for free.
That being said, Ubisoft did not assign a human voice actor to the said character, considering that it only had a few things to say, but it was regarded that Ubisoft's day-one patch for the game would not cover the Kalux voice replacement.
Engadget said that the fix may come by late January or early February.
Ubisoft's Error: Using Text-to-Speech for NPC's Voice
This bug is due to Kalux only having a few lines, so game developers usually resort to AI-generated voices as placeholders before completing the game. Later, the team would replace these placeholders with human voices and this is what the world knows as the finished product.
However, Ubisoft seemed to have missed this detail as it made it to the release version, something that it will fix soon for all.
AI Text-to-Speech and What it Offers
There are already many programs and systems available that offer significant sounds, with the likes of Microsoft, developing tools that can already mimic a person.
There is also the highly-renowned company called ElevenLabs AI which grew in popularity for their services surrounding the generative text-to-speech application that can output convincing ones for customers. The company boasted of its system that can create "emotionally rich" recordings in 30 different languages, showing how the technology progressed in the present.
Well, it is worth considering that what Ubisoft used was a free-to-use online text-to-speech generator that is typically used for streaming platforms but is also known for its massive choices available. That being said, the report claimed that do not expect that this would be solved on a day-one patch that Ubisoft may release, but may be subject to comedic takes by gamers once it releases.
