Fortnite's AI Darth Vader a Grim Portent for Voice Actors in Video Games
We find SAG-AFTRA's inability to curb AI's rising influence disturbing.
In the latest season of Fortnite, Epic added an AI chatbot that uses the voice of Sith Lord Darth Vader to respond to players’ ridiculous prompts, in the iconic style of the late actor James Earl Jones. The US labour union, SAG-AFTRA, has challenged its usage, despite the Jones family having blessed Epic to do so, saying that the move takes work away from voice actors.
It certainly does, but if we’re being honest, it’s starting to look like SAG has lost this particular battle. The precedent it sets, in a live multiplayer environment, suggests that the glory days of human video game VA might be behind us.
Voice actors have been on strike since July 2024, and the publishers and developers that represent the industry have stood firm, in lock-step, refusing to budge. Earlier this month, the industry gave the union its “best and last” offer. It includes a number of concessions, including better rates of pay, but crucially, the industry is unwilling to bend on the matter of generative AI protections for voice actors, which is SAG’s own stated line in the sand.
The union wrote, regarding Epic’s Darth Vader chatbot: “We celebrate the right of our members and their estates to control the use of their digital replicas and welcome the use of new technologies to allow new generations to share in the enjoyment of those legacies and renowned roles. However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader’s iconic rhythm and tone in video games.”
It’s certainly concerning how quickly we got to this point, and we imagine that the use of human voice actors will continue indefinitely, perhaps even as a marketable point of difference. But we can’t imagine smaller developers or money-grubbing publishers opting to pay people when they could potentially outsource VA to a machine, once the technology becomes more ubiquitous and readily available. How could an actor trying to earn a living ever hope to compete?