French Lara Croft Is AI in Tomb Raider (apnews.com)

In mid‑August, players of Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered noticed the French voice of protagonist Lara Croft had a robotic, lifeless quality. Fans and longtime French voice actor Françoise Cadol concluded her voice had been cloned and mixed with AI‑generated audio in the Aug. 14 update. Developer Aspyr later acknowledged “unauthorized AI generated content,” removed the AI voiceovers and apologized, while Cadol has engaged a lawyer seeking apology and damages. Gamers flagged an awkward, grammatically inconsistent line — “Place toi devant et appuyez sur avancer” — that betrayed the synthetic addition and helped fans identify the substitution. The episode is a vivid case study of how accessible voice‑cloning tools can be used without consent, spotlighting legal, ethical and technical challenges for the voiceover industry. Technically the clones were imperfect — mismatched prosody, grammar and timbre — but convincing enough to replace human performances and prompt calls for regulation. Voice actors warn this isn’t isolated: illicit clones and social‑media deepfakes are proliferating globally, complicating attribution and enforcement across borders. The affair underscores urgent questions about consent, ownership of vocal likeness, detection standards, and how IP and labor protections should adapt as synthetic audio becomes mainstream.