It's confirmed to not be AI, but it's obvious that many of these VAs recorded in their home closet studio. Florabelle is obviously not recording in a professional studio, and Brutus doesn't have a professional mic.
I'd venture to guess the VAs are freelancers who were given little to no creative direction for their lines. There is a very clear inconsistent level of sound quality between voice actors. And some performances are just dreadful... Brutus is supposed to be this big, ferocious, lionesque warrior and he sounds pathetic, he has no edge whatsoever. Korin sounds fine during the story, but man, the VA didn't do anything different for his combat lines...
Some of them are still fine though. Valen's VA did a pretty solid job IMO. They sent out a survey about voice acting a few days after the release. Hopefully enough people gave feedback for them to do something about it.
I don’t want to rag on the voice actors, but sometimes the emotion of the voice lines doesn’t match the situation.
Things like Cecia’s Ultimate skill voice line, her animation has her looking all haughty, even relaxed, but her voice is all tense and angry, or how Antandra pronounces her name Ahn-TAHN-dra, and when Satrana says her name (As in “I want to be just as strong as Antandra”), she pronounces it Ant-ANN-dra, getting at least the names pronounced consistently is important when you add voice acting, so i agree that voice direction needs a bit more work…
I am surprised of all the characters you chose Cecia cuz imo her va has probably done the best job at portraying the character compared to other playable characters like Korin, Brutus, Rowan and Damian
I’m not complaining about her VA in general, just that one bit stuck out as a bit “See one thing, hear another”, from her body language and what i know of her lore, a more casually evil tone seems more fitting.
I noticed the pronounciation of Antandra too, and it irks me. I personally day it the way Antandra herself says it, so I always notice when Satrana says it because there's no way she hasn't heard Antandra pronounce her own name.
I love lorsan’s introduction. He starts out with a terrified ‘HELP!’ Then his very next line is such a deadpan ‘not quite what I was expecting’ as he’s being chased by a rabid beast
Antandra is also really weird when delivering.
I feel like VA's should be encouraged to add their own personal touch to the characters. Most of the time it's better to overperform than underperform: Even an exaggerated performance can be hilarious while a monotone one is just underwhelming.
My **favourite VA is Mirael**, the way she adds personality to the character is fantastic.
>"Oops! Did I burn everything down?... Oh, well."
I think they did a really good job with Mirael, Eironn and Odie, they stand out, you can feel their personality.
Carolina is quite good too but is more because she is an errant soul (so the death tone fits).
Expecting a way better performance for upcoming units.
Bryon’s VA also does an absolutely phenomenal job. I could put a blindfold on myself and I’d still be able to tell in a single line “Yup that’s a wood elf right there”
Korin's voice is tolerable for me, but his ultimate line is just so flat that it makes me want to turn ultimate animations off whenever I do Dream Realm.
I would hope they'd at least get Mirael right She's like the poster character for both journey and arena. Hell she was the only reason I even tried Arena in the first place (and arena is the main reason I gave this game a shot).
I complained about the same thing in the last survey. Some characters have great voice/acting, but others are just terrible. Voices doesn't match the character, the pace of the speech is too bland, etc.
i thought i was the only one lol. some of them are decent but others just feel flat or don't fit the character. i play with no sound so i have voices for them in my head
I agree. I really hope the voice acting (and, honestly, writing in general) gets better. It feels like an adolescent wrote scripts for a generic story for a school project then got random strangers to read the lines with no idea of the context in the story.
The voice acting could be great but you’re right, the emotion and emphasis is often nonexistent or in the wrong place.
As for the writing, the characters don’t feel real. Some feel so gullible that it breaks immersion. Others go from being angry and frustrated to just apologizing for no reason. It feels very heavy handed and lifeless.
Maybe I’m critiquing too hard and have too high of expectations for these types of things. After all, it is more of a gameplay-focused than a true RPG or story game so it makes sense that these areas would be a lower priority
I dunno, I feel like Afk Journey is one of those games with a much stronger emphasis on story than other similar gacha/idle games so you'd *hope* they put more effort into it. But the story is really cliche and bland and the voice quality is atrocious. People are suspecting AI in some places and I can only agree, because I can't imagine real people put effort into this and thought it was ok to release.
Yeah you’re right. Other than gacha games like Star Rail it definitely does have more of an emphasis on story. I think that’s part of why I was so disappointed. I just hope this isn’t the best they can do because it isn’t sufficient if they want to market this as an AFK RPG
I literally broke when I heard Kafra for the first time. He does not look like a "Doth" and "Thou" character with a THICK Scottish accent but that's what they went with. It amused the shit out of me, and still does.
Florabelle's trailer is an example of some atrocious sound mixing, the music is completely drowning out half her words, and they don't even have custom-placed CC to help with that.
The NPCs for sure sound very AI, but I've also heard it a bit with Lorsan at some point during Vaduso Mountains, maybe earlier even. I do hope enough people submitted feedback and they do something about it.
Same. At the end of the Varduso Mountains storyline, Lorsan has his biggest coming-of-age moment, but it's absolutely clear that they generated his lines w/ a sampling of his other voicelines without even checking it over. Holy crap lol. Doesn't sound like they even used ElevenLabs, the quality and emotion was startlingly robotic. I still love the game, just what the heck happened?
It's especially jarring when he has a conversation with Eironn in that scene, who sounds completely fine and natural.
I suspect a number of Lucius and Temesia's lines are as well.
I'm thinking this as well, it would explain how flat a ton of the lines sound (I would certainly not look to AI to do convincing emotions, you know?).
Whether it's AI, poor direction, or poor sound mixing, this game has some atrocious voice quality to be honest. It's surprising because I feel like the industry has been trending upwards with really good VAs in a lot of games so AFK Journey really stands out in a bad way.
I heard a moderator apparently had contact with the company to confirm it wasn't AI, but I think I'd be a lot more convinced if they just reveal their voice actors...
Some characters have some really robotic sounding lines. I love Lorsan's voice for his character (like the actual cadence and accent) but the actual acting just isn't there at all and some of his lines sound almost chopped together. It's so weird.
This right here. I had Mirael bug out and keep repeating a line in the story but with different emotion each time. I forgot the line(something about burning the forest down?) but I had the game in the background when it happened, I re-maximized the game and it magically fixed. It was so bizarre hearing her repeat the same line of dialog over and over in different variations.
i find that kinda creepy, like is this the future of voice acting in games? Right now it can be pretty easy to differintiate ai voices, but soon it might not be so easy to tell whats a real voice and not.
There were a couple lines where the VA repeated the same line 4 times in a row, but each time with emphasis placed on different words. So seems to me the VA's probably weren't given any direction, and instead just came up with 4 different options for the developers to choose from.
Everything about the story is 3/10 at most. You feel no emotional connection with the characters, they’re very 2 dimensional. Voice acting is all over the place, no emotions in the voices. Story is generic, I felt no tension whatsoever, albeit I did skip most of the cutscenes after reaching Vaduso Mountains. The cutscenes are always just you discovering a new area or cleansing a corrupted root… Very lackluster story/character wise.
Yeah, it's really disappointing. Story is cliche and honestly great as a sleeping aid, and the voice quality is all over the place and I'm starting to suspect at least half of it is AI generated which would explain why it's so flat. AFK Arena (and Journey as a followup) have such a great aesthetic but they really cut so many corners that they are ruining it.
I agree. Something that pulled me off the game is the storytelling and kind of dull va tones. Nothing against va per se but the tones are kind of emotion neutral flat.
Agreed. I think it's the main aspect they should improve in the short term. Its current state doesn't really help with immersion, except in a few cases.
I hope they'll redo some of them, like Brutus for example, who sounds like an elderly man for some reason... Others sound pretty good, but yeah, the ones that miss tend to REALLY miss.
Or, at the very least I hope we'll get JP voice options in the near future
I think some of the minor characters might be AI voices. At least it sounds that way, mainly based on the way they use emphasis incorrectly. I think some of the voice acting is pretty good, Cecia for example sounds great.
While i do suspect some to be ai, as they way some speak, mostly in the early area feels robotic.
U can hear on the audio quality that most are real humans.
U can also hear its done with different mics, in different locations and stuff
Tbh I'd be the first person to sign up to voice act, I'd give it my all and although I've never done it before I've always considered it. I feel like passion is part of what makes voice actors really good, that they're fully buying into what they're saying, actually performing through a microphone and not just reading words off a script.
Surprised nobody mentioned Bryon yet. Ain't no way it's intended, he sounds as if he didn't give a single shit about his job. I refuse believe some "voice director" listened to it and said "that's good, we do it".
He's actually my favorite. He does sound like he doesn't give a shit but it's weirdly charming to me. Also I've noticed multiple occasions where the script uses an awkward word or slightly broken English but Bryon's VA just says something slightly different that sounds more natural
If it wasn't for everything else about this game that I liked, I would have been driven away by the voice work. The actors clearly have talent, but there was either no direction and/or the lines were delivered by AI. It just took me out of it, it was so jarring. I often found myself spamming through the dialogue to get through the voicework (at least, enough to quickly read the lines myself. I hate missing story bits in games). Now that said, there are exceptions, Cecia being a decent example, but at least for quite a few characters, and the story dialogue, it just falls flat.
I agree, they sounded so paper to sound type, there were little input in the emotion, and Brutus, oh my poor Brutus... They need to fix it, cause I was not paying attention to the story because of it
I haven't felt too upset about the voice acting personally, but I will absolutely upvote this because it definitely should be better. You really can sense the absence of a voice director.
Agreed, I don’t know how a usual VA workflow goes but a lot of it sounds like they were not given any context, other characters’ lines, or even their own lines consecutively. I notice their tones will change rapidly from one line to the next even if the entire scene should be performed with a sad tone, for example. Some of it could just use a bit of a revamp
Thats right, this game's VO sounds like a bad old school SEGA game, kinda like the infamous House of the Dead levels of bad,lmao! "Victory blooms so BEAUTIFULLY!"
Its either hit or miss tbh.
I cant stand Lyca or Lorsans English voices. Most of Wilders shoosh thier S's but Lyca is the worst. Her lines are recorded with a potato i swear.
I get psycic damage everythime Lorsan speaks or screams "THAT RASCAL" like no, Lorsan you can swear bit more that guy is killing your god tree. He sounds just anoying kids character.
Eironn seems to demend, he at start is clear winner of the wilder group but as we go to the cursed village his mic gets worse.
Funnily GB characters sounds ok and Bryon.
Lyca's ultimate especially sounds VERY bad that makes me think about AI. I also find strange they didn't write the VA's names in the characters page, they should ususally credit them (like Genshin, etc...).
I wish this game put more emphasis and care on the characters and even give us an actual story for each like AFKArena did.
I agree and it's honestly been bothering me for a while. There are a few really good ones like Mirael, but the vast majority just fall flat and the tones are just off or absolutely monotone like they got their nephew to read the lines out loud for the first time and went with it.
Look it’s a free to play game designed to pray on people susceptible to microtransactions and make the company money, i’m surprised they even have this much voice acting.
I'd agree if I hadn't played Genshin, which despite having a similar model, has VA's like Keith Silverstein who gives a voice performance as smooth as butter. I could listen to his character talk about Osmanthus Wine all day. I couldn't say the same about many Journey characters, however.
A lot of them are generally flat and stilted in delivery, but Brutus in particular is hilarious because he's so inconsistent. "For the god of war" does sound kinda gruff and growly like you'd expect, and then other times he just sounds like some old dude, and then occasionally he lapses into this awful Moichael Caine voice? It's all over the place.
Also surprised nobody's mentioned Hewynn yet. Obviously an adult trying to sound like a little girl. Barely audible anywhere except the voice-over menu. One of the worst.
Absolutely echoing this sentiment. It also doesn't really help that lmfao.. the script isn't great either and feels like it was dropped into a translator and coughed up sometimes. The characters repeat themselves so much over the course of two sentences. This part of the game needs an immense amount of elbow grease for it to get any better. That or it's entirely AI.........
The most stand out performance so far has to be Valen tho.
this is the biggest thing I dislike about afk rn!! I'm really enjoying the game and I hope to play it for a bit, but the voice acting is Brutal to listen to sometimes !!
I didn't even notice because I've skipped literally every ounce of cutscene present. The skip button is my bff. I already figured the VA work would be cringe in a mobile game.
I have my phone on silent mode and no sounds play unless I take it off as well, so double bonus!
I feel the exact same way. I also have the sticking point that several charavters just... should sound like that? Like Brutus is a lion, all tall buff and imposing and his animations are pretty dignified. Why then does he sound like an old mage struggling to stand up? Same with Walker, he sounds 12, not nearly like the rough-and-tumble cowboy he presents as.
Yeah, it's very rough. Lorsan drives me crazy half the time with his lines. Some characters are great, like I don't remember Cassadee ever bothering me with her line reads, so I don't think the voiceovers are ever "not human."
I don't know what happened, but I really wish I could change the VO language just to spare myself.
"maybe there isn't one"
I'd bet money there wasn't. They clearly cut costs on the English voice-acting side of things. Cost got cut on localization as a whole really though it's still serviceable enough.
Though I maintain it's not exactly a riveting or high quality narrative to begin with.
I think it's some very important feedback we should be giving in their next survey. If tons of people complain about it, something could be done. This is especially true with characters old and new, since voice acting can make or break sales.
I totally agree. Lorsan, Valen, Mirael, Bryon, Rowan are all fine to me. Their voices are perfectly fine for their characters and emotions as well.
But my god, most are flat as soda that’s been left out for three days and my main grievance is that Graveborn don’t have the voice effect they did in AFK Arena. It added to the undeadness of them. That and Antandra’s “This is our Victory!” When Victory is said higher instead of a lower pitch. It annoys me.
the voiced NPCs genuinely feel like their voices are ai, a lot of people mentioned brutus but i think rowan in the story lines also sounds very weird, he just sounds lost sometimes
it's genuinely disappointing to hear the voice acting lack any direction whatsoever, since it is a gacha and a big emphasis in these games is put on collecting characters (plus the varying mic quality in some of them is oof too)
Yeah, I’ve noticed that characters such as Lorsan have a fairly inconsistent accent as well, sometimes he sounds more British and sometimes he sounds more American. Other times (mostly with NPCs) you can tell when the VA is straining their voice to go lower.
Weirdly enough though, I quite enjoy Bryon’s voice, even if it does sound vaguely forced at times.
I agree with ya, at the beginning I used to play while the audio is on, but now I only play on mute. As for fix it considering that I’ve been playing Lilith’s games for over 7-8 years now, don’t expect them to ‘fix’ anything that isn’t gonna get them money. All suggestions, surveys and feedbacks are as good as nothing. They do what they want and they expect you to nod your head and thank them.
So is Genshin Impact, or HSR, or Apex Legends, or Nikke. They all blow this game's voicework out of the water.
AFK Arena's generated *at least* $1.5 billion in profits. They didn't need to cheap out on VA here.
Some people pay more than 3k per month for this, so not that free. This game makes more money than quite a lot of AAA titles, the least I expect is them to invest in talented VAs (or to properly direct them) and artists.
VA directing? I guarantee you there was none. Likely recorded over telephone, cold, one sentence at a time
this is most noticeable on Brutus, his lines really do sound like they were recorded on someones shitty flip phone
He legit sounds like a deep fried .JPG
Broooo, thank you for the laugh. I imagined someone deep frying a laptop with the screen displaying .JPG in black over a white background.
This! there was no voice director involved and if there was then that was their first day at this job.
Characters don’t even pronounce “wilders” consistently.
The game has VO? I’ve had it on mute the entire time
I am actually thinking some lines might be AI
It's confirmed to not be AI, but it's obvious that many of these VAs recorded in their home closet studio. Florabelle is obviously not recording in a professional studio, and Brutus doesn't have a professional mic.
Brutus is hysterically bad.
AlllllRIGHT, FiNisH tHIs!!
"the maulers shall inevitably GaaAaAain glory"
I'd venture to guess the VAs are freelancers who were given little to no creative direction for their lines. There is a very clear inconsistent level of sound quality between voice actors. And some performances are just dreadful... Brutus is supposed to be this big, ferocious, lionesque warrior and he sounds pathetic, he has no edge whatsoever. Korin sounds fine during the story, but man, the VA didn't do anything different for his combat lines... Some of them are still fine though. Valen's VA did a pretty solid job IMO. They sent out a survey about voice acting a few days after the release. Hopefully enough people gave feedback for them to do something about it.
God Korin only has one tone no matter what and it just hurts to listen to him for me. Would have been much cooler to me otherwise.
I would say Mirael's VA is pretty spot on so far too
I don’t want to rag on the voice actors, but sometimes the emotion of the voice lines doesn’t match the situation. Things like Cecia’s Ultimate skill voice line, her animation has her looking all haughty, even relaxed, but her voice is all tense and angry, or how Antandra pronounces her name Ahn-TAHN-dra, and when Satrana says her name (As in “I want to be just as strong as Antandra”), she pronounces it Ant-ANN-dra, getting at least the names pronounced consistently is important when you add voice acting, so i agree that voice direction needs a bit more work…
THis iS oUr ViCtoRY!!
MaKe sOmE nOiSe!
I absolutely hate her voice.
It's so bad lol
I am surprised of all the characters you chose Cecia cuz imo her va has probably done the best job at portraying the character compared to other playable characters like Korin, Brutus, Rowan and Damian
I’m not complaining about her VA in general, just that one bit stuck out as a bit “See one thing, hear another”, from her body language and what i know of her lore, a more casually evil tone seems more fitting.
I didn’t even know Satrana was saying Antandra 😭
I noticed the pronounciation of Antandra too, and it irks me. I personally day it the way Antandra herself says it, so I always notice when Satrana says it because there's no way she hasn't heard Antandra pronounce her own name.
IM AHN-THAN-dra, AN eXCiLe.
definitely ai generated
I love lorsan’s introduction. He starts out with a terrified ‘HELP!’ Then his very next line is such a deadpan ‘not quite what I was expecting’ as he’s being chased by a rabid beast Antandra is also really weird when delivering.
I feel like VA's should be encouraged to add their own personal touch to the characters. Most of the time it's better to overperform than underperform: Even an exaggerated performance can be hilarious while a monotone one is just underwhelming. My **favourite VA is Mirael**, the way she adds personality to the character is fantastic. >"Oops! Did I burn everything down?... Oh, well."
I think they did a really good job with Mirael, Eironn and Odie, they stand out, you can feel their personality. Carolina is quite good too but is more because she is an errant soul (so the death tone fits). Expecting a way better performance for upcoming units.
Yes I really enjoy Odie his personality shines in his different lines (of course I haven’t heard him in a story yet)
It’s his smug, almost made me a furry.
Give in, bro, Just look at his eyes man like he's asking for it.
Rowan and Koko are also pretty good
Bryon’s VA also does an absolutely phenomenal job. I could put a blindfold on myself and I’d still be able to tell in a single line “Yup that’s a wood elf right there”
OMG agree, great voice actor and characterization.
Add Valen to that.
Mirael is by far the best. Worst of the worst is Korin. I dislike his voice so much I refuse I use him.
Korin's voice is tolerable for me, but his ultimate line is just so flat that it makes me want to turn ultimate animations off whenever I do Dream Realm.
Korin's voice sounds like a middle aged dad
For me it's Bryon. I hate every decision made for his voice. Not enough to not play him, but I genuinely hate gearing him speak.
I would hope they'd at least get Mirael right She's like the poster character for both journey and arena. Hell she was the only reason I even tried Arena in the first place (and arena is the main reason I gave this game a shot).
korin still kills me lol, bro is so monotone
he sounds like a middle aged tech worker showing up to work, not a battle-scarred warrior
I mean... isn't that basically the same?
Glad I’m not the only one who thought that. And he sounds like he recorded his lines over an old Nokia phone.
C'mon! You'll need my spear!
no escaping for you.. *😶*
Antandra: “make some noise. This is our victory. 😐”
This is the one i hate so much, I had to stop using her.
Lmaooo same. It was so annoying.
Same
I complained about the same thing in the last survey. Some characters have great voice/acting, but others are just terrible. Voices doesn't match the character, the pace of the speech is too bland, etc.
Every time I hear Antandra's victory line I die inside.
Same..
i thought i was the only one lol. some of them are decent but others just feel flat or don't fit the character. i play with no sound so i have voices for them in my head
I'm not convinced they are all bad/AI, but I'm certainly convinced Lyca is.
“MAke some nOIse, tHis is our VICtory! 😐”
I agree. I really hope the voice acting (and, honestly, writing in general) gets better. It feels like an adolescent wrote scripts for a generic story for a school project then got random strangers to read the lines with no idea of the context in the story. The voice acting could be great but you’re right, the emotion and emphasis is often nonexistent or in the wrong place. As for the writing, the characters don’t feel real. Some feel so gullible that it breaks immersion. Others go from being angry and frustrated to just apologizing for no reason. It feels very heavy handed and lifeless. Maybe I’m critiquing too hard and have too high of expectations for these types of things. After all, it is more of a gameplay-focused than a true RPG or story game so it makes sense that these areas would be a lower priority
I dunno, I feel like Afk Journey is one of those games with a much stronger emphasis on story than other similar gacha/idle games so you'd *hope* they put more effort into it. But the story is really cliche and bland and the voice quality is atrocious. People are suspecting AI in some places and I can only agree, because I can't imagine real people put effort into this and thought it was ok to release.
Yeah you’re right. Other than gacha games like Star Rail it definitely does have more of an emphasis on story. I think that’s part of why I was so disappointed. I just hope this isn’t the best they can do because it isn’t sufficient if they want to market this as an AFK RPG
I literally broke when I heard Kafra for the first time. He does not look like a "Doth" and "Thou" character with a THICK Scottish accent but that's what they went with. It amused the shit out of me, and still does.
I watched the Florabelle trailer and I couldn't even tell what they were saying half the time. ESL btw.
Florabelle's trailer is an example of some atrocious sound mixing, the music is completely drowning out half her words, and they don't even have custom-placed CC to help with that.
I heavily suspect that most of the voice acting in this game is ai
I think the story voice over is generated or incredibly bad. The one liners all seem pretty good though.
The NPCs for sure sound very AI, but I've also heard it a bit with Lorsan at some point during Vaduso Mountains, maybe earlier even. I do hope enough people submitted feedback and they do something about it.
Same. At the end of the Varduso Mountains storyline, Lorsan has his biggest coming-of-age moment, but it's absolutely clear that they generated his lines w/ a sampling of his other voicelines without even checking it over. Holy crap lol. Doesn't sound like they even used ElevenLabs, the quality and emotion was startlingly robotic. I still love the game, just what the heck happened? It's especially jarring when he has a conversation with Eironn in that scene, who sounds completely fine and natural. I suspect a number of Lucius and Temesia's lines are as well.
I'm thinking this as well, it would explain how flat a ton of the lines sound (I would certainly not look to AI to do convincing emotions, you know?). Whether it's AI, poor direction, or poor sound mixing, this game has some atrocious voice quality to be honest. It's surprising because I feel like the industry has been trending upwards with really good VAs in a lot of games so AFK Journey really stands out in a bad way.
I heard a moderator apparently had contact with the company to confirm it wasn't AI, but I think I'd be a lot more convinced if they just reveal their voice actors... Some characters have some really robotic sounding lines. I love Lorsan's voice for his character (like the actual cadence and accent) but the actual acting just isn't there at all and some of his lines sound almost chopped together. It's so weird.
Im glad I wasnt the only one who thoight of this. Lorsan and Lyca sound time to time so unnatural.
This right here. I had Mirael bug out and keep repeating a line in the story but with different emotion each time. I forgot the line(something about burning the forest down?) but I had the game in the background when it happened, I re-maximized the game and it magically fixed. It was so bizarre hearing her repeat the same line of dialog over and over in different variations.
i find that kinda creepy, like is this the future of voice acting in games? Right now it can be pretty easy to differintiate ai voices, but soon it might not be so easy to tell whats a real voice and not.
There were a couple lines where the VA repeated the same line 4 times in a row, but each time with emphasis placed on different words. So seems to me the VA's probably weren't given any direction, and instead just came up with 4 different options for the developers to choose from.
I had to turn off the voice acting tbh, I love the game to death but the quality of the va really took me out of it.
Same
Everything about the story is 3/10 at most. You feel no emotional connection with the characters, they’re very 2 dimensional. Voice acting is all over the place, no emotions in the voices. Story is generic, I felt no tension whatsoever, albeit I did skip most of the cutscenes after reaching Vaduso Mountains. The cutscenes are always just you discovering a new area or cleansing a corrupted root… Very lackluster story/character wise.
Yeah, it's really disappointing. Story is cliche and honestly great as a sleeping aid, and the voice quality is all over the place and I'm starting to suspect at least half of it is AI generated which would explain why it's so flat. AFK Arena (and Journey as a followup) have such a great aesthetic but they really cut so many corners that they are ruining it.
I agree. Something that pulled me off the game is the storytelling and kind of dull va tones. Nothing against va per se but the tones are kind of emotion neutral flat.
Agreed. I think it's the main aspect they should improve in the short term. Its current state doesn't really help with immersion, except in a few cases.
I hope they'll redo some of them, like Brutus for example, who sounds like an elderly man for some reason... Others sound pretty good, but yeah, the ones that miss tend to REALLY miss. Or, at the very least I hope we'll get JP voice options in the near future
I think some of the minor characters might be AI voices. At least it sounds that way, mainly based on the way they use emphasis incorrectly. I think some of the voice acting is pretty good, Cecia for example sounds great.
I've been spoiled by Hoyoverse so I try not to take production quality too seriously in mobile games.
There were rumors that the VA were done by AI
Nah the audio quality is too inconsistent, probably just done over telephone with no directing
While i do suspect some to be ai, as they way some speak, mostly in the early area feels robotic. U can hear on the audio quality that most are real humans. U can also hear its done with different mics, in different locations and stuff
Considering how many of them desperately need windscreens, I don't think so. Or at least not all of them.
Tbh I'd be the first person to sign up to voice act, I'd give it my all and although I've never done it before I've always considered it. I feel like passion is part of what makes voice actors really good, that they're fully buying into what they're saying, actually performing through a microphone and not just reading words off a script.
Surprised nobody mentioned Bryon yet. Ain't no way it's intended, he sounds as if he didn't give a single shit about his job. I refuse believe some "voice director" listened to it and said "that's good, we do it".
I love his VA's deadpan delivery. Regardless of the story or context he's just along for the ride with no actual care for what is happening.
He's actually my favorite. He does sound like he doesn't give a shit but it's weirdly charming to me. Also I've noticed multiple occasions where the script uses an awkward word or slightly broken English but Bryon's VA just says something slightly different that sounds more natural
Some of the VAs sound like they were $5 Fiverr pickups. One of the scenes a VA’s mic was clipping lmao
Brutus’ voice was NOT what I expected. Though Mirael & Odie seemed to take it up a notch
If it wasn't for everything else about this game that I liked, I would have been driven away by the voice work. The actors clearly have talent, but there was either no direction and/or the lines were delivered by AI. It just took me out of it, it was so jarring. I often found myself spamming through the dialogue to get through the voicework (at least, enough to quickly read the lines myself. I hate missing story bits in games). Now that said, there are exceptions, Cecia being a decent example, but at least for quite a few characters, and the story dialogue, it just falls flat.
I agree, they sounded so paper to sound type, there were little input in the emotion, and Brutus, oh my poor Brutus... They need to fix it, cause I was not paying attention to the story because of it
I haven't felt too upset about the voice acting personally, but I will absolutely upvote this because it definitely should be better. You really can sense the absence of a voice director.
Agreed, I don’t know how a usual VA workflow goes but a lot of it sounds like they were not given any context, other characters’ lines, or even their own lines consecutively. I notice their tones will change rapidly from one line to the next even if the entire scene should be performed with a sad tone, for example. Some of it could just use a bit of a revamp
Thats right, this game's VO sounds like a bad old school SEGA game, kinda like the infamous House of the Dead levels of bad,lmao! "Victory blooms so BEAUTIFULLY!"
Its either hit or miss tbh. I cant stand Lyca or Lorsans English voices. Most of Wilders shoosh thier S's but Lyca is the worst. Her lines are recorded with a potato i swear. I get psycic damage everythime Lorsan speaks or screams "THAT RASCAL" like no, Lorsan you can swear bit more that guy is killing your god tree. He sounds just anoying kids character. Eironn seems to demend, he at start is clear winner of the wilder group but as we go to the cursed village his mic gets worse. Funnily GB characters sounds ok and Bryon.
Brutus' VA is terrible and I hope they change it soon
I don’t know why but lyca especially has a very bad quality mic whenever she utters a word with ‘S’ it becomes very staticky
Lyca's ultimate especially sounds VERY bad that makes me think about AI. I also find strange they didn't write the VA's names in the characters page, they should ususally credit them (like Genshin, etc...). I wish this game put more emphasis and care on the characters and even give us an actual story for each like AFKArena did.
😏: "come out my servant and FIGHT FOR ME"
Nah you leave mommy cecia out of this one, her voice is 🥵
I cringed a lot the first day I played and then I muted. Can't
Yeah I skip the audio and just read the synopsis because it’s so bad, couldn’t agree more with you mate
Yeah, they did not invest at all in the voice acting. It would have been an easy and cheap way to drastically increase the quality of the story, imo.
I agree and it's honestly been bothering me for a while. There are a few really good ones like Mirael, but the vast majority just fall flat and the tones are just off or absolutely monotone like they got their nephew to read the lines out loud for the first time and went with it.
Look it’s a free to play game designed to pray on people susceptible to microtransactions and make the company money, i’m surprised they even have this much voice acting.
I'd agree if I hadn't played Genshin, which despite having a similar model, has VA's like Keith Silverstein who gives a voice performance as smooth as butter. I could listen to his character talk about Osmanthus Wine all day. I couldn't say the same about many Journey characters, however.
A lot of them are generally flat and stilted in delivery, but Brutus in particular is hilarious because he's so inconsistent. "For the god of war" does sound kinda gruff and growly like you'd expect, and then other times he just sounds like some old dude, and then occasionally he lapses into this awful Moichael Caine voice? It's all over the place. Also surprised nobody's mentioned Hewynn yet. Obviously an adult trying to sound like a little girl. Barely audible anywhere except the voice-over menu. One of the worst.
I was hoping there was jp va or something and there wasn't lol
Absolutely echoing this sentiment. It also doesn't really help that lmfao.. the script isn't great either and feels like it was dropped into a translator and coughed up sometimes. The characters repeat themselves so much over the course of two sentences. This part of the game needs an immense amount of elbow grease for it to get any better. That or it's entirely AI......... The most stand out performance so far has to be Valen tho.
yea i play the game on mute LOL
this is the biggest thing I dislike about afk rn!! I'm really enjoying the game and I hope to play it for a bit, but the voice acting is Brutal to listen to sometimes !!
"Can you youngsters be a little more Low-key?" Is probably the worst line in the game
I thought it was AI lol
Totally agree
I agree, which is why I skip all story now
I didn't even notice because I've skipped literally every ounce of cutscene present. The skip button is my bff. I already figured the VA work would be cringe in a mobile game. I have my phone on silent mode and no sounds play unless I take it off as well, so double bonus!
I feel the exact same way. I also have the sticking point that several charavters just... should sound like that? Like Brutus is a lion, all tall buff and imposing and his animations are pretty dignified. Why then does he sound like an old mage struggling to stand up? Same with Walker, he sounds 12, not nearly like the rough-and-tumble cowboy he presents as.
Yeah, it's very rough. Lorsan drives me crazy half the time with his lines. Some characters are great, like I don't remember Cassadee ever bothering me with her line reads, so I don't think the voiceovers are ever "not human." I don't know what happened, but I really wish I could change the VO language just to spare myself.
"maybe there isn't one" I'd bet money there wasn't. They clearly cut costs on the English voice-acting side of things. Cost got cut on localization as a whole really though it's still serviceable enough. Though I maintain it's not exactly a riveting or high quality narrative to begin with.
I'm almost convinced Loran is an AI voice.
I think it's some very important feedback we should be giving in their next survey. If tons of people complain about it, something could be done. This is especially true with characters old and new, since voice acting can make or break sales.
You don’t know what’s going ON with the VA directing*
The VA direction reminds me alot of xenoblade 2. It's a mix bag of emotion and pure cringe.
I totally agree. Lorsan, Valen, Mirael, Bryon, Rowan are all fine to me. Their voices are perfectly fine for their characters and emotions as well. But my god, most are flat as soda that’s been left out for three days and my main grievance is that Graveborn don’t have the voice effect they did in AFK Arena. It added to the undeadness of them. That and Antandra’s “This is our Victory!” When Victory is said higher instead of a lower pitch. It annoys me.
the voiced NPCs genuinely feel like their voices are ai, a lot of people mentioned brutus but i think rowan in the story lines also sounds very weird, he just sounds lost sometimes it's genuinely disappointing to hear the voice acting lack any direction whatsoever, since it is a gacha and a big emphasis in these games is put on collecting characters (plus the varying mic quality in some of them is oof too)
Yeah, I’ve noticed that characters such as Lorsan have a fairly inconsistent accent as well, sometimes he sounds more British and sometimes he sounds more American. Other times (mostly with NPCs) you can tell when the VA is straining their voice to go lower. Weirdly enough though, I quite enjoy Bryon’s voice, even if it does sound vaguely forced at times.
I thought I was the only one thinking this
I personally dislike igors voice the most
“My wave of knowledge will crush yu!” No offense. I’m sure she is a pleasant and hardworking lady but that VA work was legit not great.
i turned on sounds for the first time ever to listen to the VA thanks to this post lol
Has no one mentioned Silvina? Shes making out with her microphone
I agree with ya, at the beginning I used to play while the audio is on, but now I only play on mute. As for fix it considering that I’ve been playing Lilith’s games for over 7-8 years now, don’t expect them to ‘fix’ anything that isn’t gonna get them money. All suggestions, surveys and feedbacks are as good as nothing. They do what they want and they expect you to nod your head and thank them.
Eh.. I don’t listen to any of it anyways ha 🤷♂️
Story is trash anyway
Y’all play with sound on? Lol
I think you enjoy the story belonging to a mobile skinner box that only wants your money, a little too much.
Bro it’s a free game 😭
So is Genshin Impact, or HSR, or Apex Legends, or Nikke. They all blow this game's voicework out of the water. AFK Arena's generated *at least* $1.5 billion in profits. They didn't need to cheap out on VA here.
Some people pay more than 3k per month for this, so not that free. This game makes more money than quite a lot of AAA titles, the least I expect is them to invest in talented VAs (or to properly direct them) and artists.
There's clearly a lot of investment in this game.
Lmaoooo it’s important to you? Spend money or don’t and enjoy the gacha experience