Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown NPC Sneaks Through with Text-to-Speech Audio at Launch

Ubisoft seems to have a bonafide hit on its hands with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, critically at least, and we awarded Sargon's latest adventure an 8/10 in our own review. But as slick as the game is, it looks like one slipped by the goalie, as Ubisoft confirms the game will ship with a specific NPC still using placeholder text-to-speech (TTS), which will be corrected in a future update.

The saga is a strange one, relayed to us by IGN. During the early review period, it was pointed out that the voice of the tree spirit character, Kalux, sounded remarkably like an AI or TTS program, specifically this one, popular amongst streamers. The character in question doesn't seem to be credited with a voice actor, unique among the rest of the voiced cast.

IGN reached out to the production studio responsible for the game voicework, SIDE UK, who surreptitiously pointed the finger back at Ubisoft, explaining: "SIDE London provides casting, production management, voice direction, voice recording and post-production in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, for which we work with a talented cast of professional actors. As a production company, we did not have visibility of any other voice design plans, TTS or otherwise, Ubisoft had for the game."

When approached, Ubisoft admitted it was responsible for the snafu, explaining that "during the development process of a game, some teams use multiple placeholder assets, including text-to-speech voiceover, until final dubbing is delivered", and the English version of those eight lines were not properly implemented. The company promises that it will be updated in an upcoming patch, taking time to remind us The Lost Crown is fully voiced in English, French, Spanish, Geman, and Farsi, with more than 12,000 lines in total.

It's a tiny thing in the grand scheme, and the use of placeholder text is common enough in game development. It's kind of incredible, though, that the voice chosen was recognizable as TTS so quickly. Let us know what you think in the comments section below.