Since the first Witcher game launched in 2007, Jacek Rozenek has been the Polish voice of Geralt of Rivia. CD Projekt Red plans to use AI so that his Geralt in the upcoming Songs of the Past DLC sounds the way he did in The Witcher 3.
The cause is a health one. Rozenek had a stroke in 2019 and couldn’t speak for months afterward. Long rehabilitation and training got him speaking and acting again, but his voice returned lower and gruffer than before.
A voice that fits the wrong Geralt
The studio thinks Rozenek’s voice as it is today could work for an older Geralt in The Witcher 4. Songs of the Past is another matter. The DLC arrives next year, takes place in the same period as The Witcher 3 and is tightly connected to the main game.
So players will hear fresh recordings sitting right next to older ones. If Geralt seemed to age 12 years from one line to the next, few would miss it.
English-language players likely know Doug Cockle as Geralt. For the studio’s Polish audience, though, the character has belonged for almost two decades to Rozenek, a voice actor with 30 years of experience.
How the Respeecher setup works
CDPR has partnered with Respeecher, a company that does AI voice cloning. Respeecher will study the 10,000 voice lines recorded for the base game of The Witcher 3.
Every line in Songs of the Past is still recorded by Rozenek himself. The AI then reshapes those fresh takes so they match his original voice. He keeps the performance, and the software corrects for how the stroke changed his voice.
In an interview, Rozenek said he believes he can carry on in the role. “I can play this role. Of course, it’s very good that this voice will be matched,” he said.
Where the consent argument stands
Game developers often meet AI with hostility, and voice cloning draws some of the strongest objections because it can push actors out of their jobs entirely. Here it works in the opposite direction. CDPR keeps its original actor, who has agreed to the process, and doesn’t have to recast the part or rebuild Geralt’s voice from nothing.
CDPR’s localization producer, Mikołaj Szwed, said that “this is one of those ways where you can use AI ethically, with consent and also to do something good.”
CDPR began as a small studio in Poland and today sells its games to millions of players around the world. The choice around Rozenek is meant for its Polish players, the audience it had first. With his rehabilitation and Respeecher’s matching combined, the aim is a Geralt who sounds as near as possible to the one Polish players heard when The Witcher launched almost 20 years ago.