The Respeecher team is made up of young and talented individuals from diverse backgrounds. More often than not, the projects we work on are the same movies, music, and video games that we enjoy in our free time. This time, it's more true than ever, with regard to one of the most popular video games ever made—Cyberpunk 2077. In 2023, we assisted CD PROJEKT RED in reviving the voice of one of the most loved voice actors from the Cyberpunk 2077 franchise.
The Challenge
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in 2020 by CD PROJEKT RED—a game development studio renowned for creating one of the most popular and critically acclaimed RPGs of the last decade, The Witcher series of games. A popular character throughout the different storylines is Viktor Vektor, a ripperdoc who assists the main character in enhancing their body with advanced implants and modifications. Viktor's story of friendship with the main character is a critical narrative throughout the overall game, and quickly endeared him to players.
Sadly, in 2021, Miłogost Reczek, the actor responsible for Viktor Vektor's voice in the Polish version of the game, passed away. While working on the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, CD PROJEKT RED attempted to find different actors to voice Vektor's lines in the new content. However, it quickly became apparent that finding a replacement without sacrificing his original tone and cadence was impossible.
With the endorsement of Reczek's family, the studio embarked on a path that balanced respect for the actor's legacy with technological innovation. That's when they reached out to Respeecher to recreate the voice of the actor for Phantom Liberty expansion that went live in 2023.
The Solution
As with any other process of this nature, we first had to create an AI model of Miłogost Reczek. This was not a problem, as there were plenty of high-quality studio recordings of his performances. In the recreation, the source voice actor who performed Viktor Vektor's lines was Janusz Zadura. Janusz did an amazing job trying to mimic Miłogost's performance. The quality of the conversion was near perfect, and no one could notice the difference between the original voice actor and the synthesized voice.
The timeframe for the project was tight, but together with CD PROJEKT RED, we managed to complete the project on time.
The Results
Phantom Liberty, the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, was released on September 26, 2023. It debuted with glowing reviews and sold over 5 million copies by the end of 2023 .
YouTube hosts numerous fan videos where bloggers discuss the revival of Viktor's voice, having been informed that it wasn't the original actor. Virtually all of them state they couldn't have distinguished between the synthesized and original voices if they hadn't been informed.
The permission to recreate the voice and the acknowledgment of the results from Reczek's family is equally important as the overall game's success. In an ethical setting, voice conversion does its best work. It honors the phenomenal work of those who came before while simultaneously paving the way for aspiring artists to leave their mark on voice acting.
