Witcher’s Polish Geralt Uses AI Voice Restoration to Bridge Recordings

Geralt’s Polish voice is returning with an unusual production partner: AI. Jacek Rozenek’s voice changed after his 2019 stroke, and CD Projekt Red sought his approval to bring in assistance. Stephen Totilo reported the arrangement for Game File on November 11. The interesting creative question is what happens when software helps an established performer keep a role, rather than taking the recording booth away from him.

The continuity problem comes from adding dialogue to an existing game. New speech can appear beside older recordings, making a change in vocal character conspicuous. A sequel might give listeners time to settle into a different sound. An expansion has a harder editorial task: the player can move between material produced years apart without leaving the same adventure. The desired illusion is a continuous character, even though the recordings are separated by a substantial stretch of an actor’s life.

VGC’s account of Totilo’s interview says Rozenek is recording new lines and permitting Respeecher to alter them. CDPR’s own announcement establishes the setting for that collaboration: Songs of the Past is being co-developed with Fool’s Theory for release in 2027. This is a human-and-machine performance workflow intended for a commercial expansion, rather than a fan experiment or an automatically generated replacement cast.

Respeecher describes speech-to-speech conversion as starting with recorded acting and transferring it into a target voice while retaining timing and emotional delivery. Think of it as digital makeup for sound. The performer supplies the hesitation or intensity; the processing changes the vocal appearance. Text-to-speech starts elsewhere, with written words that a system turns into spoken delivery. That distinction matters because two productions described simply as using AI voices can assign very different amounts of creative work to their actors.

The companies have a documented precedent. Respeecher says its 2023 work on Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty used performances by Janusz Zadura to recreate the voice of the late Miłogost Reczek, with his family’s endorsement. Here the original performer is still involved. Neither example makes consent or creative control irrelevant; both make those questions concrete. For players, the practical test is whether the dialogue feels at home in the scene. For studios, this illustrates a narrower possibility than replacing performers wholesale: using voice conversion to connect new acting with an established character’s sound. The expansion will bring that choice into players’ hands in 2027.

Original source published: Game File, November 11, 2026.