Witcher 3’s polish Geralt voice will be tuned with AI

Geralt’s Polish voice is getting an AI touch-up, but the actor is still the one doing the talking.

Jacek Rozenek, who voices Geralt in the Polish version of The Witcher 3, had a stroke in 2019 and lost his speech for several months. He recovered enough to record a few lines for the next-gen update in 2021, but even that left him exhausted, as a recent report explains.

CD Projekt Red wanted him back for the Witcher 3: Songs of the Past expansion, but his voice had become rougher and lower. The expansion also needs plenty of new lines, many of them for violent combat scenes. That is demanding work for anyone, never mind someone still recovering.

How the AI comes in

The studio brought in Respeecher, a Ukrainian AI company. Rozenek records every line himself, and the software adjusts his voice to sound closer to how it did before the stroke. He has given his blessing.

CDPR has used Respeecher before, to recreate the Polish voice of Viktor in Cyberpunk after his actor, Miłogost Reczek, died in 2021. This case is different because the original actor is still performing.

CDPR admits the ethics of AI in voice acting are tricky, but it considers this a fair use. I mostly agree. The actor performs, the actor approves, and the goal is to keep him in the role. My worry is the precedent. Voices change as people age, and that shouldn’t become a reason to replace or “fix” them.

Rozenek said yes, and that makes all the difference.