Geralt's Polish voice is protected by artificial intelligence

CD Projekt Red will use artificial intelligence for Geralt's Polish voice in The Witcher 3's new expansion pack, Songs of the Past. Voice actor Jacek Rozenek still records every line himself. However, once the recordings enter the studio, they go through Respeecher's audio conversion technology.

Songs of the Past and the changing voice after stroke

Rozenek has voiced Geralt in Polish since the first game in 2007. However, he could not speak for months due to the stroke he had in 2019. As he told Game File, he worked six to seven hours a day to regain his voice.

He briefly returned to the role in 2021 as his speech recovered. He then signed up for a quest in The Witcher 3's next-gen update, coming out in 2022. Moreover, even this short session made him very tired. As a matter of fact, today his voice is noticeably deeper and more hoarse than when the game was released in 2015.

To prevent old and new lines from clashing

Announced in May, Songs of the Past is being developed alongside Fool's Theory. It will be the third story expansion for The Witcher 3 and will be released for a fee in 2027. The pack will include new dialogue, battle cries, reactions and one-liners. Many of these will play along with the thousands of lines Rozenek recorded more than a decade ago.

According to localization producer Mikołaj Szwed, the studio invited Rozenek about a year ago to see what his sound is like today. The session confirmed concerns that new recordings might conflict with old ones. Because these lines would often be heard one after the other. Therefore, with Rozenek's approval, CDPR turned to Ukrainian voice cloning company Respeecher, with whom it had previously worked.

How does Respeecher transform audio?

Rozenek saves the lines normally. Respeecher, on the other hand, reshapes the sound to resemble the actor's previous performance. The model was trained with Rozenek's entire The Witcher 3 recordings, including nearly 10,000 lines from the base game. In Szwed's words, the studio delivered all the lines Rozenek had recorded to Respeecher.

Respeecher's Dmytro Vasylets said the hardest part was capturing the range of emotion. For example, these include halftones, shouts, grunts and laughter. Rozenek stated that the goal is to sound as close as possible to what it was 12 years ago. He also said that he trusts the producers of the game. He did not listen to the processed lines himself.

CDPR also clarified that it does not plan to change Rozenek's voice in future projects. On the other hand, a deeper, harsher voice might suit the older Geralt in a game like The Witcher 4.

CDPR's second job with Respeecher

This is not the first time the studio has used this technology. Miłogost Reczek, who voiced Viktor Vektor in the Polish dub of Cyberpunk 2077 and Vesemir in the Polish version of The Witcher 3, died in December 2021 at the age of 60. Janusz Zadura voiced Viktor's new lines in Phantom Liberty, which was released in September 2023. Respeecher translated these into Reczek's voice with the family's approval.

This time it's different: Rozenek is alive, he gave his consent, and he's reading every line himself. Szwed agrees that artificial intelligence is a big concern for voice actors around the world. Still, he argues, it's an example of where it can be done "ethically, with consent, and to do a good thing." Songs of the Past will be available for a fee in 2027.