The lead actor of Blood of Dawnwalker reminds us why AI always strives to replicate human performance.

Will De Renzy Martin, who plays the lead character Coen in the English-language version of The Blood of Dawnwalker, has reminded us of the value humans bring to performance, in contrast to AI-generated voice lines.

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"The least important thing about what I do is how I sound."

Will DeRenzi Martin, who played Coen's title character in the English version of The Blood of Dawnwalker, reminded us of the value that humans bring to performance, as opposed to artificial intelligence creating vocal lines.

Speaking in a TikTok teaser for an upcoming episode of the My Perfect Console podcast, De Renzi Martin revealed how his lines are only half of what an actor brings. "I think the least important thing about what I do is my voice," De Renzi Martin said. “That's really all that generative AI is capable of replicating.

It's not about repeating who I am and what I do when I'm in the room, and the choices that I make, are all reasons why a director or a producer would want to work with me. "And there may be directors and producers who don't want to do those things [and use artificial intelligence], but then they have to be really good at taking performances from something — they have to have their own ideas."

This argument reminds de Renzi Martin of what he apparently said four or five years ago: “Actors are very cheap in the grand scheme of things. And if you end up with an AI that can produce the right one, you're going to need someone who can interact with it and connect the performance you want to those sounds — and they're going to cost a lot more than an actor."

The Blood of Dawnwalker project caused controversy when developer Rebel Wolves revealed that it had used text-to-speech AI tools to plan cinematics during the game's development, before hiring actors to become the characters and play the roles. Game director Konrad Tomazkiewicz has been quite open about the potential use of AI in game development as well, mostly pointing to helping with tedious tasks such as troubleshooting. Nothing in The Blood of Dawnwalker is created with artificial intelligence.

Other game companies have pushed the use of AI further, such as Embark Studios, creator of The Finals and Arc Raiders, which controversially used AI to generate voice lines in both games.

Elsewhere, companies like Elevenlabs have built huge businesses around licensing the voices of famous actors and then producing lines based on those samples. Actor Matthew McConaughey is an investor in Elevenlabs — which is set to appear in its first video game next year: Exodus, a Mass Effect-like sci-fi RPG. McConaughey's voice lines for Exodus were not artificially generated.

Will DiRenzi Martin has appeared in a number of video games this year, including Sunken City 2 (as Corentin de Grandmange), 007 First Light (Henry Bancroft) and Star Wars: Galactic Racer (Shadow). However, it's his original take on the role of Coen that he's best known for. And this is a great performance. His smooth, velvety voice makes Koen a very easy and enjoyable character, perfect for someone you spend a lot of time with in the game.

I awarded The Blood of Dawnwalker four stars in my Eurogamer review. I wrote: “CD Projekt Red alumni create a familiar dark fantasy adventure, but one with its own bold and provocative ideas, which is mostly very successful.