The Ascent is the first game to use Altered’s Speech-to-Speech augmented voice technology. All the side missions that were previously subtitled will now have voice over dialogue using Altered’s technology after today’s update
December 16, 2021
[This unedited press release is made available courtesy of Game Developer and its partnership with notable game PR-related resource Games Press]
Author: Curve Digital
London, United Kingdom - 15 December, 2021: Developer of popular Cyberpunk Action RPG The Ascent, Neon Giant, has partnered with sound design house Sweet Justice Sound and Altered, developers of Altered Studio, a new AI-powered tool to augment human voices to create a range of custom voices for new lines of dialogue. The Ascent, published by Curve Games, is the first game to use this new software with 800 lines of dialogue for 40 different NPC characters created using the Altered Studio tool for side missions that were previously subtitled. This additional voice over content will be added to the game in today’s update.
Altered Studio gives developers an option to populate games with believable spoken dialogue and create a richer player experience. Taking recordings captured by an actor, in this case Sam Hughes, sound design house Sweet Justice Sound used Altered Studio to augment his voice. The result is a multitude of diverse high quality voice performances that can be used for a range NPCs that may not have been voiced due limited budget, time or staffing availability.
Co-founder and Creative Director of the studio Arcade Berg said: “We are always striving to make The Ascent the best game it can be, and adding more voice over dialogue was always on our list of things to do. We are delighted to have been able to partner with the team at Altered who were able to provide an awesome solution to make this happen that aligned with our small studio mentality of working smarter and more efficiently whilst only having a small team of people.
As a small development team, we always want to find and support people and companies with new and efficient cutting edge technology solutions and Altered Studio certainly fits into that category. They have been wonderful to work with and we hope that other developers will be able to benefit from Altered Studio to scale up the voice over needs just as we did.”
Samuel Justice co-founder and supervising sound designer at Sweet Justice Sound: "The results speak for themselves, Altered allows the VO scope of projects to increase dramatically without the large financial or time investment that is normally needed. It’s bridging the gap between AAA and independent developers further, and is helping push forward the democratisation of game development which is very exciting!"
Voice actor Sam Hughes, who voiced the 800 new lines of dialogue for The Ascent said: “Hearing someone else acting like me, literally with my performance, will forever be one of the coolest and most bizarre experiences I’ve ever had. It was such a unique opportunity, to be able to bring my performance to even more characters for the game in this way. It’s pretty incredible and the end result is highly impressive”
Simon Barford, Head of Audio at Altered added: “We wanted Altered Studio to provide a solution to allow developers the option to have natural and believable voiceover within their games at AAA production values. With The Ascent, as with many projects undertaken by indie studios with limited resources, in-game interactions are often subtitled. Altered Studio was developed to give creators the tools to add realistic voice over to interactions such as these and enhance their games. Using our powerful Speech to Speech technology, Altered Studio removes obstacles associated with voicing any media, allowing the creation of dialogue and vocalisations for prototyping and production quickly, easily and locally”
About The Ascent Update
The update, which went live today will add:
All subtitled dialogue will now be voiced: Addition lines of dialogue for side missions across the game
Free Winter Pack update: All players of The Ascent will receive a free Winter Pack, available to download for free. This will provide players with the perfect festive look with the snowball grenade and three new fashion apparels.
About The Ascent
A solo and co-op action-shooter RPG set in a sci-fi cyberpunk world, The Ascent is the first title from Neon Giant, a new 12-person studio composed of games industry veterans who were some of the minds behind iconic AAA titles such as the Gears of War, Bulletstorm and Wolfenstein franchises. The Ascent is now available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles and PC and Xbox Game Pass.
Buy today on Xbox: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/the-ascent
Buy today on PC: https://store.steampowered.com/app/979690/The_Ascent/
The Ascent base game price: £24.99 / $29.99 / €29.99.
Related Links
The Ascent Twitter: @AscentTheGame https://twitter.com/AscentTheGame
The Ascent Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/theascent/
Curve Games YouTube: @CurveDigital https://www.youtube.com/curvedigital
Curve Games Website:https://curvegames.com/
Neon Giant Twitter: @NeonGiantGames - https://twitter.com/neongiantgames
More information on Neon Giant can be found at http://www.neongiant.se
Altered Studio website: https://www.altered.ai/
Sweet Justice Sound: https://sweetjusticesound.com/
- ENDS -
For media enquiries in Europe:
Stefano Petrullo – Renaissance PR
[email protected]
+44 (0) 7828 692 315
Sophie Carter - Renaissance PR
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+44 (0) 7810 848 320
About Curve Games
Curve Games is an award-winning independent label working with developers across the world to deliver the best in interactive entertainment. With a uniquely diverse games catalogue that includes renowned indie hits such as For the King, Bomber Crew, The Ascent and Lawn Mowing Simulator, and the multi-million selling smash hit Human Fall Flat, Curve Games has taken its place as one of the leading games publishers worldwide. More information on Curve Games can be found at http://www.curvegames.com
About Neon Giant
Neon Giant is a small team of experienced games industry veterans with a heritage in some of the world’s biggest action game franchises. With our combined know-how, passion and ambition, we've set out to create a new type of studio. Our intention is to draw upon our AAA experience and focus on working efficiently, empowering each individual in order to maximise our creativity and push the boundaries of making really fun videogames.
At Neon Giant, every team member is a key player in our bold vision of creating world-class action games that will stand proud and tall with the giants. Small is beautiful, small is Neon Giant.
About Altered Studio
Altered Studio allows the creation of a multitude of diverse, high quality voice performances with instant results and local processing. Users can use speech-to-speech voice technology to unleash creativity, save time, money and create more content to craft their story, world and experiences without compromise with portfolio or custom voices. https://www.altered.ai/
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