Epic Games integrates AI voices into 36 Fortnite characters

Epic Games, the publisher and developer of one of the world's most popular games, Fortnite, has announced that it has added "consistent voices and personas" to 36 existing Fortnite characters, such as Agent Jones and The Imagined. These voices are to be used in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), allowing creators to include these characters and their voices on their islands.

As the Fortnite blog further reveals, these new voices are powered by Google's Gemini AI, with performances captured from independent professional actors specifically for use in developer-made islands. Below you can hear a sample of these performances.

"The actors agreed to have their performances used to develop voice models that create the spoken responses for these LLM-powered Fortnite characters," Epic wrote in a blog post. "Our next step is to work with the relevant guilds and character voice actors who have previously worked on Fortnite Battle Royale to explore opportunities to make their original voices available across the Fortnite ecosystem."

The pivot to including AI voices for Fortnite characters was announced by Epic in April this year as part of the new conversations system, which allows Fortnite creators to create AI-powered characters that can talk and react to a player's actions. For example, if a player spoke to the character and said "hello," the character would respond accordingly. Furthermore, the character is able to remember what happened in the game session and thus adapt its behavior, as well as trigger events within the game.

Conversations were previously part of an Experimental feature, meaning that while creators could create islands with this feature, they wouldn't be able to publish projects. However, come July 30, the conversation system will exit Experimental and players will be able to publish their islands with their large language model-powered NPCs and characters.

Fortnite has had a tricky history with AI already, the most memorable moment of which was Disney allowing Epic to bring AI Darth Vader to Fortnite lobbies. As predicted, the result was players finding ways to trick the Sith Lord into saying vulgarities and expletives. It was soon fixed with a patch, but the damage was already done — if players can find a way to abuse AI, they absolutely will.

Regardless, the replacement of voice acting with LLM is a devastating blow for actors within the industry. If Epic, one of the most powerful publishers in the world, is using AI, what's to stop others with not nearly the same resources or reputation from doing the same?