This Week in Games

That Naruto Sounds Different...

Happy Friday, fellow weeb gamers. Although this week has been pretty light on announcements and trailers from video game companies outside of Capcom's release date announcement (and $70 price tag) for Dragon's Dogma 2, it's also had its fair share of discourse concerning artificial intelligence. Here's this week in gaming.

Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections, by publisher Bandai Namco and developer CyberConnect2, has been at the center of controversy among gamers. This week, fans accused the latest entry in the arena fighter series of mailing it in with its English voice acting by using AI. X/Twitter by user ShonenGamez shared a cutscene where the inflection of Naruto's voice jarringly changes in the middle of an emotional scene with Sasuke.

The vocal performance was so odd that Naruto's English actor Maile Flanagan responded by saying she didn't record that line.

“I can guarantee I did not say that line that way," Flanagan said in a now-deleted tweet (according to IGN). "What's that from? And I guarantee no voice director of Naruto or the games would have me do that in that way."

Michael Schwalbe, the English actor for Kawaki, shared his thoughts on the game's odd voice acting as well. In response to a similar tweet asking whether the actors weren't given context for their line read, Schwalbe responded by saying:

“You've got good ears! We weren't! They give you a list of lines and we go down the page and do 2 takes each and it might say ‘final attack’ ‘small pain’ 'attacking.' But I swear to god I do not remember this being the line for that attack because there ain't no way I'd do myself like that.”

In a statement to IGN, a Bandai Namco spokesperson denied allegations that it used AI, apologized for the game's vocal performances, and promised that it is working on a fix.

“Regarding the reports about several voice-over lines in Naruto X Boruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections, Bandai Namco Entertainment can confirm that the lines in question were not AI-generated but the result of inconsistencies during the editing and mastering process," the spokesperson told IGN. “We regret that this raised a concern with Naruto fans and the voice-acting community. We are currently working to fix the voice lines in question, which will be patched in the near future."

I'm sure fans like myself who've grown awry of AI technology's pervasion in the voice-over industry breathed a sigh of relief hearing that the game's peculiar vocal performance wasn't the result of a shoddy AI workaround on Bandai Namco's part. Believe it.

Tensions between professional voice actors and content creators have been steadily rising as the years pass. What started as content creators using AI to copy popular characters' voices in silly videos has escalated to companies dipping their toes into using machine-learning technology to own the rights to an actor's likeness. Things have gotten so dire recently that video game voice actors are ready to strike over protections against AI, just like this year's SAG-AFTRA strike.

Unfortunately, Bandai Namco wasn't the only company facing AI allegations this week. Silent Hill: Ascension, the first new entry in Konami's horror series in the past decade, has had a rough launch, to say the least. Ascension, developed by Genvid, is an episodic interactive horror game where players have 24 hours to vote on puzzle and gameplay decisions while watching a live stream on its official website. Earlier this week, X/Twitter user VoidBurger shared a bunch of screenshots from Silent Hill: Ascension, saying its dialogue feels “uniquely robotic” and boring.

The discourse was fueled further when another Twitter user pointed out Genvid CEO Jacob Navok's previous statements about using AI in the game. Novak would respond in a separate post on his official Twitter account, saying the game was “written by real people.”

“Every word in Ascension was written by real people, many of whom have long-running careers in writing, including Telltale titles, Pixar titles, GoW Ragnarok, Resident Evil Village, and more,” Novak wrote in a tweet. “Across our 100,000+ words, zero are authored by LLMs or AI, and all are from dedicated work of a talented team.”

Novak also addressed allegations over the developers' use of AI, saying none of their previous AI work on animation and cinematic production was used in the game. Although the game doesn't use AI in its scripting, it is being used to moderate the game's live stream chat to detect “offensive names for account registration.”

Like with Bandai Namco, it's nice to hear that AI isn't the root of a video game's problems. I think I speak for all of us in saying we can use a break from that ongoing existential nightmare.

The Game Awards are next week on December 7, and one of its nominees for Best Indie Game has sparked an online conversation about what exactly qualifies a game as “indie.” The game in question is Dave The Diver, a seafaring action RPG by developer MintRocket. Although MintRocket isn't a household name like powerhouse “triple A” studios like Naughty Dog or Square Enix, Nexon owns it, a billion-dollar South Korean video game publisher.

The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley took a stab at explaining why Dave The Diver, a game that wasn't independently funded, qualified as a “Best Indie” in an interview with Video Game Chronicle. His answer was akin to folks saying Avatar: The Last Airbender is an anime based purely on its vibes alone.

“Independent can mean different things to different people, and it's sort of a broad term," Keighley told VGC. "You can argue, does independent mean the budget of the game, does independent mean where the source of financing was, does it mean the team size? Is it the kind of independent spirit of the game, meaning a smaller game that's sort of different? I think everyone has their own opinion about this, and we really defer to our jury of 120 global media outlets who vote on these awards to make that determination.”

To Keighley's credit, the definition of an indie game has become a bit nebulous over the years. I posit a huge part of why this snafu happened in the first place is because of the stigma games without hyper-realistic graphics, like The Last of Us Part II, get for being seen as an “indie.” This, coupled with a developer's name not being easily recognizable, tends to have gamers and outlets alike immediately view a game as an indie title.

However, in this case, Nexon vice-president Kim Dae-whon told Korean gaming outlet GameToc that Dave the Diver "may look like an indie, but it's not necessarily so."

I don't think Dave The Diver should qualify as a “Best Indie” candidate for the simple fact that it wasn't independently developed. For the sake of argument, calling Dave The Diver an indie game would be like calling Bayonetta 3 an indie title as well. And calling Bayo 3 an indie would be a silly thing to claim because its developer, PlatinumGames, took a major investment from the uber-rich entertainment conglomerate Tencent. Plus, including Dave The Diver as a candidate robs other smaller indie games not called Baldur's Gate 3 (it's technically an indie) of the chance to be awarded as a good indie tile. This mishap wouldn't have happened on my watch, I tell you what.

Lastly, Sega fed fans in dire need of an update on the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog film with a new teaser image for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The film's official Twitter account updated fans with a teaser image of the lower half of fan-favorite character Shadow the Hedgehog's body standing next to a clapperboard. The teaser image also revealed that the film will hit theaters on December 20, 2024.

While one sect of Sonic fans were (rightfully) geeking out over how clean and lore-accurate Shadow's titular air shoes are, other eagle-eyed fans were losing their minds over the film's logo. The logo, which shows an outline of Shadow and Sonic's spin dashes, is a clever reference to Sonic Adventure 2's logo. While some fans have taken this clever nod as a hint that the film would be adapting the events from Sonic Adventure 2, it's still too soon to say whether the movie will be a one-for-one recreation of it. Whatever the case, I just hope Sega plans on partnering with a shoe brand so I can cop Shadow's kicks.

Congratulations, you've survived my first This Week in Games guide from yours truly. Hopefully, next week will be less about companyies panicking over Twitter discourse and more about Sonic memes. Fingers crossed.