AI voice acting is changing modding, and it's killing one of the best parts of the scene: The amateur voice actor with a cheap headset mic

Dagoth Ur, the final boss of Morrowind, stands with hands on hips.
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Wherever you go, there it is: AI voice tools for New Vegas, AI Voices for Better Dungeons in Oblivion, Tucker Carlson Interviews Dagoth Ur. More and more, AI voice acting is seeping into modding for all my favourite games, lending voice to the voiceless using digital trickery. There's even a project to voice the entirety of my favourite game of all time—The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind—using machine learning. 

How should I feel about that? Ordinarily, my stance on AI voice acting is easy to explain: It sucks. While I don't think AI in general is inherently a bad thing—it just needs to be a well-regulated tool in the hands of well-organised devs rather than a substitute for them—I've never heard an artificial voice that was more than a pale imitation of the genuine article: Sucralose voice acting. Just a cheap substitute used by greedy companies to avoid spending money, and universally to the detriment of the resulting game. It's bad for games and bad for voice actors. Case closed.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

But you can't say the same for mods, which are fan efforts made (usually) for no money by people motivated purely by a love of the game they're working on. For games like Morrowind, New Vegas and Oblivion, that's a love I share and empathise with. I just can't get as angry about it when it crops up on Nexus Mods as I do when it crops up in The Finals.

But does that mean it's okay? No. It just makes it a different kind of bad. More than anything, of course, it's a strange form of identity theft: twisting a real person's voice to say things they never said and might not be comfortable saying. It's not for no reason that Wes Johnson—the actual, for-real "Stop! You violated the law!" guy—called AI "evil," and wrote that "anyone trying to create a mod using an actor’s voice via AI *without consent* knows they are wrong."

But as someone who grew up playing, following, and loving all kinds of mods, I have an additional, particularly selfish fear. AI voice acting risks killing one of the absolute best, most wholesome, most storied traditions of the entire modding scene: The amateur voice actor recording their own lines into a headset microphone.

(Image credit: Off Topic Productions)

You wanna know one of my favourite games ever? The Nameless Mod. A sweeping overhaul of the original Deus Ex that tells an in-joke-riddled story of users on the dearly departed Planet Deus Ex forums. It's a genuinely excellent immersive sim that takes all the lessons of the first Deus Ex and uses them to make a game that is—if I'm being honest—a better sequel than Invisible War. 

Also, it enlisted nearly its entire voice cast from the PDX forums user base. Most of them sound like they recorded their lines by putting microphones at one end of a warehouse and screaming into them from the other. That's not a criticism and it's not ironic appreciation, I truly love that aspect of the mod. It is a sign of love and dedication: A collaborative effort by sheer amateurs motivated by passion for their project and the game it's based on.

Most of them sound like they recorded their lines by putting microphones at one end of a warehouse and screaming into them from the other

Imagine replacing them all with the clipped tones of a synthesised AI voice pack. No echo, no hiss, no soul. I wouldn't remember a single one of those characters the way I do the thoroughly British Phasmatis. I wouldn't remember a single line the way I remember Ryan asking me if I had lost my fucking (the curse is important) mind. It'd all be the same awkward morass. A testament to efficiency rather than affection.

I have similar memories of a pre-TSLRCM mod for KOTOR 2, one that restored the lost Jedi padawan Kaevee to the ruins of the Dantooine academy. Kaevee was voiced by, well, I have no idea. Either the modder themself or someone they shanghaied into recording some lines. Her voice was aggressively high-pitched, a screech sufficient to blow your speakers out, and it's lived rent-free in my head ever since I was 14 years old or so. Is any modern teenager using a Morrowind AI voice pack (hey, there's gotta be one zoomer out there with the same baffling tastes I have) going to carry similar memories into their 30s? I doubt it.

(Image credit: LucasFilm Games)

That's not to be alarmist. I don't think AI voices are going to kill the amateur voice actor stone-dead. Projects like Skywind, for instance, are making ample use of volunteer actors to voice reams upon reams of written content. But its presence as a cheap and easy alternative will, I think, tempt more than a few modders into the dark side as the years wear on. That's no future I want part of.

Joshua Wolens
News Writer

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Read more
Apex Legends Final Fantasy 7
Over 30 Apex Legends voice actors refuse to sign an agreement that would see them 'give up our expertise to train the generative AI that will replace us tomorrow'
Aloy - Horizon
'I feel worried about this art form:' Unsurprisingly, the real Aloy from Horizon isn't a fan of AI Aloy
Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3.
Mass Effect's Jennifer Hale, who played femshep, 'saw no line' before she recorded them for Bioware's flagship trilogy: 'It was all cold reading on the spot'
Aloy
'Creepy,' 'ghastly,' 'rancid': Viewers react to leaked video of Sony's AI-powered Aloy
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 15: Protestors attend the SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike Picket on August 15, 2024 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Lila Seeley/Getty Images)
8 months into their strike, videogame voice actors say the industry's latest proposal is 'filled with alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to AI abuse'
Paradise building in the sun in Avowed
Avowed's inert cities remind me just how good we had it in Skyrim and Oblivion
Latest in AI
Closeup of the new Copilot key coming to Windows 11 PC keyboards
Microsoft co-authored paper suggests the regular use of gen-AI can leave users with a 'diminished skill for independent problem-solving' and at least one AI model seems to agree
Still image of Bastion holding a bird, taken from Microsoft's Copilot for Gaming reveal trailer
Microsoft unveils Copilot for Gaming, an AI-powered 'ultimate gaming sidekick' that will let you talk to your console so you don't have to talk to your friends
BURBANK, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 15: Protestors attend the SAG-AFTRA Video Game Strike Picket on August 15, 2024 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Lila Seeley/Getty Images)
8 months into their strike, videogame voice actors say the industry's latest proposal is 'filled with alarming loopholes that will leave our members vulnerable to AI abuse'
live action Jimbo the Jester from Balatro holding a playing card and addressing the camera
LocalThunk forbids AI-generated art on the Balatro subreddit: 'I think it does real harm to artists of all kinds'
Aloy
'Creepy,' 'ghastly,' 'rancid': Viewers react to leaked video of Sony's AI-powered Aloy
Seattle, USA - Jul 24, 2022: The South Lake Union Google Headquarter entrance at sunset.
Google is rolling out an even more AI-heavy search engine mode because 'power users want AI responses for even more of their searches'
Latest in Features
midnight murder club
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 17, 2025)
Geralt, two swords on his back, in the wilderness
2011 was an amazing comeback year for PC gaming
Alligator skull with glowing eyes on human body and cords coming out sitting at piano with "The Norwood Etudes" ready to play
My new most anticipated RPG let me be a kleptomaniac gourmand set loose in a noir city on a quest to make 'the perfect sandwich'
Monster Hunter Wilds' stockpile master studying a manifest
Monster Hunter Wilds' new gyro controls are a fantastic option for disabled and able-bodied players alike
Manhunt 2
I played the notoriously ratings-board-ravaged Manhunt 2 and was quite glad for the censorship actually
Wyrdsong concept art
Wyrdsong, the RPG from ex-Bethesda talent, isn't dead—but it's no longer an open world: 'We're down to a skeleton crew'