July 2025
“I am Altering the Deal; Pray I Don’t Alter It Any Further”: SAG-AFTRA Takes on AI Darth Vader
The video game industry continues to experience a post-COVID hangover in terms of mass redundancies to offset the extra hiring made during the pandemic in anticipation of the spike of growth from people staying at home for months on end, and continued ballooning development costs. Naturally, it was the perfect time for a new challenger to put its hat in the ring, as the winding down of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with the advent of generative AI in public discourse.
The divisiveness over the use of generative AI in the video game development process shows up in forms familiar and unique to the video game industry. On one hand, it is no longer quite a pipe dream that, based on the current rate of growth in generative AI, AI could evolve from its current assistant role in game development tasks, such as coding and creation of visual and audio assets, to taking over for or even outright replacing the human involved, thereby theoretically minimizing the labor costs that make up a substantial portion of the overall development budget via both accelerating the development time and keeping the team headcount low. On the other hand, player opinion regarding the use of generative AI in video games remain staunchly negative, mostly with a great deal of cynicism over the perceived intent by upper management to maximize profit above all else, in particular compromising artistic quality (given the proclivity for AI hallucinations) and merit (it can only generate art in the same style that it was trained on), in mandating the use of generative AI in a medium that is still trying to establish its legitimacy in the general public as works of art. Examples of recent player backlash against use of generative AI-created assets that appeared in the final product include Activision-Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, in which generative AI was used to develop some of the seasonal assets that players may purchase for use in the game’s multiplayer mode; and Square-Enix’s Foamstars, which used AI-generated cover art for its in-game music pieces. As a result, there is no major upcoming game, AAA or otherwise, that touts generative AI use as a primary feature.
Despite the overall negative perception with AI-generated works in the market, the potential for AI to replace human labor, especially for the parts of the game creation process that are more amenable to automation, has drawn the concern of labor rights groups. After working in tandem with the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) in a double strike against the film and television industry in 2023, he Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“SAG-AFTRA”) switched its target to the video game industry and initiated a strike on July 26, 2024 against the largest video game companies, such as Activision-Blizzard, EA, Epic Games, WB Games and others, to bargain for better protection of its member voice actors and motion capture artists amidst growing use of generative AI. The strike came at the end of ongoing negotiations with the above same companies since October 2022, during which SAG-AFTRA had internally voted in September 2023 to proceed with a strike after the negotiations broke down. Some of SAG-AFTRA’s demands in the strike can be seen in the agreement it reached with Replica Studios, a specialist in using AI to replicate/synthesize the voices of specific persons for use in video game voiceovers, in January 2024. The main points include obtaining prior consent from the voice actor, transparency of purpose of voice replication, responsible storage of the replicated voice data, limited royalty-free uses of the voice data (after which the voice actor shall be paid as if they had provided the voiceover in-person), and allow the voice actor to opt-out of allowing their voice to be replicate by AI.
Although such goals appear to be aligned with general consumer sympathy over the aforementioned recent wave of mass layoffs and the distaste over generative AI use in the industry, SAG-AFTRA’s strike was not without its critics. Due to the number of SAG-AFTRA members involved (about 2,600 individuals per SAG-AFTRA) and the duration of the strike, many live-service and in-production games were impacted. For games with characters who are voiced by voice actors on strike, those characters either went voiceless for the content published during the strike (e.g., Riot Games’ League of Legends), or were re-cast with non-union voice actors or voice actors based outside the U.S. (e.g., the MiHoYo games Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero). So in addition to growing discontent from gamers experiencing lesser quality content, critics of the strike argued that the strike may have just taught video game publishers that there are plenty of skilled English voice actors not affiliated with SAG-AFTRA, and the attractiveness of U.S.-based English voice talent in the future has been diminished not just in the eyes of the major U.S.-based video game publishers, but those in the rest of the world as well, such as PRC-based MiHoYo.
Furthermore, the circumstances of the strike also resulted in one of the first labor charges filed by a union against a video game publisher for AI use. In February 2024, Disney announced its acquisition of a shareholding stake in Epic Games, the developer and publisher of the highly popular battle royale game Fortnite, for US$1.5 billion, in which it envisioned a multiyear partnership to create “games and an entertainment universe” with Disney IP appearing in Fornite and future productions developed with Epic’s Unreal Engine, one of the most widely used game development software in the world that also has applications in filmmaking. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger made no secret about the impetus behind the making this deal: “This represents probably [Disney’s] biggest foray into the game space ever, which I think is not only timely, but an important step when you look at the demographic trends and look at where Gen Alpha and Gen Z and even Millennials are spending their time in media…” Simply put, Disney is looking for ways to maintain the mindshare of its IPs in children and young adults, especially for classic IPs like Star Wars, whose most ardent fans are aging, and how the Star Wars media produced by Disney have by and large yet to replicate the impact on popular culture as the original trilogy did in the early 1980s. To promote the launch of its animated series Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld on “Star Wars Day” 2025 (May 4th – “May the ‘Fourth’ be with you”) on Disney+, Disney arranged with Epic to introduce a Star Wars¬-themed season in Fortnite starting on May 2. Besides the new game assets, such as the environment, weapons, characters, etc. all being based on the Star Wars universe, episodes of the show will be viewable on the map while the players are battling. It was further teased that Darth Vader himself may appear to players if certain conditions are met.
As it turns out, besides appearing as a special enemy, Darth Vader also acts as an in-game NPC (non-player character) with whom the players may interact directly. However, unlike in the past where the NPC’s responses are scripted beforehand and are thus limited in what they can say to the player, players are encouraged to pose whatever questions they would like Vader to answer, whether it be about Fortnite, the various lore of the Star Wars universe, or even regarding our own world, to which he will respond in character – fully voiced based on the voice of James Earl Jones, who provided Darth Vader’s voice in the original film trilogy and most of Vader’s appearances in other media before his death in 2024. To achieve this level of player interactivity, generative AI was used for both generating the response to player questions and the synthesis of Jones’ voice based on his past performances as the character. While the result is not without its flaws, as players soon found ways to manipulate the AI Vader to spout obscenities and racist statements like many other chatbots, which required a swift patch from Epic, the overall player perception has been positive, insofar as a gimmick element with no gameplay impact, and has the potential to serve as a persuasive example of generative AI use in video games in a circumstance under which traditional production methods would be too time-consuming or even outright no longer possible, as in the case of replicating the voices of actors who have passed away or are no longer capable of performing such voices.
SAG-AFTRA, however, took exception to the AI Darth Vader. On May 19, 2025, SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Epic Games and Llama Productions, a wholly-owned subsidiary studio of Epic Games who was the signatory on Epic’s behalf of SAG-AFTRA’s current collective bargaining agreement with respect to Fortnite. In the NLRB complaint, SAG-AFTRA asserts that Epic and Llama “failed and refused to bargain in good faith with the union by making unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain, by utilizing AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work”, which constitute unfair labor practices as defined in Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”, 29 U.S.C. §158(a)(1) and §158(a)(5)). In other words, SAG-AFTRA is alleging that pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, Vader’s voice in Fortnite would have been union work, thus Epic and Llama should have hired the other voice actors besides Jones who have played Darth Vader (over 50, according to IMDB) when Jones was not available to record the lines for Vader’s appearance in the game, and notify SAG-AFTRA about the situation beforehand to negotiate the terms of how the union may be compensated for AI replacement, instead of directly resorting to AI voice generation.
Public opinion on this move, however, was mixed at best. James Earl Jones was very supportive of the use of AI to synthesize his voice for future Darth Vader appearances in media, including signing a contract with Disney in 2022 to hand over the rights to his voice. Epic, in showing their thanks to his estate for the aforementioned Vader appearance in Fortnite, shared a statement with the players from his surviving family that echoed Jones’ desire for his performances to live on for future generations to enjoy. As a result, AI Vader was crucially not the case of AI voice reproduction without the voice actor’s consent, which blunted much of the criticisms leveled against generative AI use; SAG-AFTRA’s move may have looked more like an attempt to get a cut of the Epic’s profits rather than protecting its members’ rights. Tellingly, SAG-AFTRA’ press statement seemed to acknowledge the Jones family’s approval of AI replication of Jones’ voice as Darth Vader in claiming that they “celebrate members using digital replicas for future generations to enjoy renowned roles”, and instead tried to focus on the alleged contract breach in not “providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain.”
Despite the optics of the case seemingly leaning in Epic’s favor, could Epic and Llama be found liable for unfair labor practices by breaching their Fortnite collective bargaining agreement with SAG-AFTRA as alleged? Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA is a catch-all provision that prohibits the employer for interfering, restraining or coercing employees in any way with respect to the right to collective activity (e.g., joining and assisting a labor union, engaging in collective bargaining), while Section 8(a)(5) prohibits an employer from refusing to bargain with employee representatives. A violation of any of the Section 8(a) provisions by an employer constitutes a violation of 8(a)(1), thus the main legal issue for the NLRB to determine should be whether there was a Section 8(a)(5) violation.
The Section 8(a)(5) inquiry revolves around whether the employer is refusing to bargain with the employee representative (or union) on a matter that is considered a mandatory subject of bargaining. On the statutory side, Section 8(d) of the NLRA provides that “wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment [emphasis added]“ are considered subjects that employers are obliged to bargain in good faith with the employee representative/union, and US court decisions have interpreted “other terms and conditions of employment” broadly, ranging from readily understood issues such as changes to employee disciplinary rules, to lesser-known ones such as office cafeteria and vending machine prices (Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U.S. 488 (1979)). Although it may be possible to make analogous arguments to existing mandatory subjects (e.g., AI doing the work of a union worker likened to a form of subcontracting, which is a mandatory subject), there has not been any significant court decisions that specifically address whether AI replacement of union work constitutes a mandatory bargaining subject, although some U.S. states, like Washington, are attempting at introducing such requirement into law. As such, at the moment, the issue depends on the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the employer and the union. In the current case, given SAG-AFTRA’s position on AI in its previous strike with the WGA in 2023, if SAG-AFTRA had the foresight to stipulate the use of generative AI in place of any union work in Fortnite as a mandatory subject of bargaining, or at least require advance notice to SAG-AFTRA, SAG-AFTRA would appear to have a prima facie basis for its 8(a)(5) claim.
On the other hand, if Epic’s litigation record in recent years is any indication, they will likely contest SAG-AFTRA’s unfair labor practice claim. One possible line of argument from Epic may be questioning whether voicing AI Vader is in fact union work in the first place. As mentioned, the AI Vader was able to respond in real-time to any topic raised by the players like all generative-AI based chatbots, but also fully voiced in character, which makes it unlike other human-voiced digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri, whose voiced responses were scripted ahead of time and comparatively very limited in scope. Epic may thus argue that there is no feasible way to replicate AI Vader via putting an entire corps of human voice actors taking shifts in recording booths answering players’ questions in real-time; pre-recording responses is impracticable unless the scope of player questions to which AI Vader would give a response to are significantly reduced, at which point the AI Vader would no longer function like an AI chatbot and more like an “evil Siri” instead. In this connection, Epic may also argue that it is similarly unfeasible to just have the human voice actor pre-record words from which a response is pieced together through reading them back in a proper order, as even though a typical English conversation may only involve 2,000-4,000 words, there would still be no way to account for all possible instances of Star Wars lore vocabulary that players may ask. This method, however, raises an interesting question as to whether SAG-AFTRA would consider the result acceptable, given that a LLM would still likely be needed to come up with the response before the pre-recorded words are further processed to make the resulting response as natural as possible (e.g., accounting for voice inflection).
Despite Epic’s willingness to litigate, it is extremely likely that the parties will settle the dispute long before the NLRB proceeding renders a decision on the matter, given the possible room for the parties to reach a compromise. Regardless of the legal result or the lack thereof, the AI Darth Vader in Fortnite will likely retain referential value on the potential of and issues arising from re-creations of famous fictional characters with generative AI, as well as a sort of “datapoint” for a specific point in time on how much the general consumer is willing to accept generative AI being used not just in the background but as part of the final creative product – as mentioned, the video game industry is in sore need for a solution to the unsustainable increases in cost, time and resources in video game production, and even if generative AI is unlikely to be the answer, its use cases in video games will almost certainly continue to grow for the next few years despite the consumer hostility.
As an additional footnote, three weeks after its unfair labor practice charge against Epic, SAG-AFTRA announced on June 11, 2025 that they have tentatively accepted the latest draft of the Interactive Media Agreement and the strike would be officially suspended once the terms are finalized in the following weeks. While the terms of the new Interactive Media Agreement are not available at the time of this writing, SAG-AFTRA’s press release lauded the new 3-year agreement for its better safeguards regarding AI use by the video game industry, such as the mandatory informed consent from the human performer and compensation for “Digital Replicas”, it also recognized work on a new deal must start immediately afterwards, since three years is an eternity for generative AI to evolve and the new agreement may be rendered ineffective at protecting its members by that time.
Given the attention from all sides of the debate, the use of generative AI in video games should continue to be a hot topic for some time to come. For those wishing to engage in prognostication in industry trends, the games that are scheduled to launch in 2026 may be instructive, including the 800-pound gorilla known as Grand Theft Auto VI.
The divisiveness over the use of generative AI in the video game development process shows up in forms familiar and unique to the video game industry. On one hand, it is no longer quite a pipe dream that, based on the current rate of growth in generative AI, AI could evolve from its current assistant role in game development tasks, such as coding and creation of visual and audio assets, to taking over for or even outright replacing the human involved, thereby theoretically minimizing the labor costs that make up a substantial portion of the overall development budget via both accelerating the development time and keeping the team headcount low. On the other hand, player opinion regarding the use of generative AI in video games remain staunchly negative, mostly with a great deal of cynicism over the perceived intent by upper management to maximize profit above all else, in particular compromising artistic quality (given the proclivity for AI hallucinations) and merit (it can only generate art in the same style that it was trained on), in mandating the use of generative AI in a medium that is still trying to establish its legitimacy in the general public as works of art. Examples of recent player backlash against use of generative AI-created assets that appeared in the final product include Activision-Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, in which generative AI was used to develop some of the seasonal assets that players may purchase for use in the game’s multiplayer mode; and Square-Enix’s Foamstars, which used AI-generated cover art for its in-game music pieces. As a result, there is no major upcoming game, AAA or otherwise, that touts generative AI use as a primary feature.
Despite the overall negative perception with AI-generated works in the market, the potential for AI to replace human labor, especially for the parts of the game creation process that are more amenable to automation, has drawn the concern of labor rights groups. After working in tandem with the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) in a double strike against the film and television industry in 2023, he Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (“SAG-AFTRA”) switched its target to the video game industry and initiated a strike on July 26, 2024 against the largest video game companies, such as Activision-Blizzard, EA, Epic Games, WB Games and others, to bargain for better protection of its member voice actors and motion capture artists amidst growing use of generative AI. The strike came at the end of ongoing negotiations with the above same companies since October 2022, during which SAG-AFTRA had internally voted in September 2023 to proceed with a strike after the negotiations broke down. Some of SAG-AFTRA’s demands in the strike can be seen in the agreement it reached with Replica Studios, a specialist in using AI to replicate/synthesize the voices of specific persons for use in video game voiceovers, in January 2024. The main points include obtaining prior consent from the voice actor, transparency of purpose of voice replication, responsible storage of the replicated voice data, limited royalty-free uses of the voice data (after which the voice actor shall be paid as if they had provided the voiceover in-person), and allow the voice actor to opt-out of allowing their voice to be replicate by AI.
Although such goals appear to be aligned with general consumer sympathy over the aforementioned recent wave of mass layoffs and the distaste over generative AI use in the industry, SAG-AFTRA’s strike was not without its critics. Due to the number of SAG-AFTRA members involved (about 2,600 individuals per SAG-AFTRA) and the duration of the strike, many live-service and in-production games were impacted. For games with characters who are voiced by voice actors on strike, those characters either went voiceless for the content published during the strike (e.g., Riot Games’ League of Legends), or were re-cast with non-union voice actors or voice actors based outside the U.S. (e.g., the MiHoYo games Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero). So in addition to growing discontent from gamers experiencing lesser quality content, critics of the strike argued that the strike may have just taught video game publishers that there are plenty of skilled English voice actors not affiliated with SAG-AFTRA, and the attractiveness of U.S.-based English voice talent in the future has been diminished not just in the eyes of the major U.S.-based video game publishers, but those in the rest of the world as well, such as PRC-based MiHoYo.
Furthermore, the circumstances of the strike also resulted in one of the first labor charges filed by a union against a video game publisher for AI use. In February 2024, Disney announced its acquisition of a shareholding stake in Epic Games, the developer and publisher of the highly popular battle royale game Fortnite, for US$1.5 billion, in which it envisioned a multiyear partnership to create “games and an entertainment universe” with Disney IP appearing in Fornite and future productions developed with Epic’s Unreal Engine, one of the most widely used game development software in the world that also has applications in filmmaking. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger made no secret about the impetus behind the making this deal: “This represents probably [Disney’s] biggest foray into the game space ever, which I think is not only timely, but an important step when you look at the demographic trends and look at where Gen Alpha and Gen Z and even Millennials are spending their time in media…” Simply put, Disney is looking for ways to maintain the mindshare of its IPs in children and young adults, especially for classic IPs like Star Wars, whose most ardent fans are aging, and how the Star Wars media produced by Disney have by and large yet to replicate the impact on popular culture as the original trilogy did in the early 1980s. To promote the launch of its animated series Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld on “Star Wars Day” 2025 (May 4th – “May the ‘Fourth’ be with you”) on Disney+, Disney arranged with Epic to introduce a Star Wars¬-themed season in Fortnite starting on May 2. Besides the new game assets, such as the environment, weapons, characters, etc. all being based on the Star Wars universe, episodes of the show will be viewable on the map while the players are battling. It was further teased that Darth Vader himself may appear to players if certain conditions are met.
As it turns out, besides appearing as a special enemy, Darth Vader also acts as an in-game NPC (non-player character) with whom the players may interact directly. However, unlike in the past where the NPC’s responses are scripted beforehand and are thus limited in what they can say to the player, players are encouraged to pose whatever questions they would like Vader to answer, whether it be about Fortnite, the various lore of the Star Wars universe, or even regarding our own world, to which he will respond in character – fully voiced based on the voice of James Earl Jones, who provided Darth Vader’s voice in the original film trilogy and most of Vader’s appearances in other media before his death in 2024. To achieve this level of player interactivity, generative AI was used for both generating the response to player questions and the synthesis of Jones’ voice based on his past performances as the character. While the result is not without its flaws, as players soon found ways to manipulate the AI Vader to spout obscenities and racist statements like many other chatbots, which required a swift patch from Epic, the overall player perception has been positive, insofar as a gimmick element with no gameplay impact, and has the potential to serve as a persuasive example of generative AI use in video games in a circumstance under which traditional production methods would be too time-consuming or even outright no longer possible, as in the case of replicating the voices of actors who have passed away or are no longer capable of performing such voices.
SAG-AFTRA, however, took exception to the AI Darth Vader. On May 19, 2025, SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair labor practice charge before the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Epic Games and Llama Productions, a wholly-owned subsidiary studio of Epic Games who was the signatory on Epic’s behalf of SAG-AFTRA’s current collective bargaining agreement with respect to Fortnite. In the NLRB complaint, SAG-AFTRA asserts that Epic and Llama “failed and refused to bargain in good faith with the union by making unilateral changes to the terms and conditions of employment without providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain, by utilizing AI-generated voices to replace bargaining unit work”, which constitute unfair labor practices as defined in Sections 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”, 29 U.S.C. §158(a)(1) and §158(a)(5)). In other words, SAG-AFTRA is alleging that pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement, Vader’s voice in Fortnite would have been union work, thus Epic and Llama should have hired the other voice actors besides Jones who have played Darth Vader (over 50, according to IMDB) when Jones was not available to record the lines for Vader’s appearance in the game, and notify SAG-AFTRA about the situation beforehand to negotiate the terms of how the union may be compensated for AI replacement, instead of directly resorting to AI voice generation.
Public opinion on this move, however, was mixed at best. James Earl Jones was very supportive of the use of AI to synthesize his voice for future Darth Vader appearances in media, including signing a contract with Disney in 2022 to hand over the rights to his voice. Epic, in showing their thanks to his estate for the aforementioned Vader appearance in Fortnite, shared a statement with the players from his surviving family that echoed Jones’ desire for his performances to live on for future generations to enjoy. As a result, AI Vader was crucially not the case of AI voice reproduction without the voice actor’s consent, which blunted much of the criticisms leveled against generative AI use; SAG-AFTRA’s move may have looked more like an attempt to get a cut of the Epic’s profits rather than protecting its members’ rights. Tellingly, SAG-AFTRA’ press statement seemed to acknowledge the Jones family’s approval of AI replication of Jones’ voice as Darth Vader in claiming that they “celebrate members using digital replicas for future generations to enjoy renowned roles”, and instead tried to focus on the alleged contract breach in not “providing notice to the union or the opportunity to bargain.”
Despite the optics of the case seemingly leaning in Epic’s favor, could Epic and Llama be found liable for unfair labor practices by breaching their Fortnite collective bargaining agreement with SAG-AFTRA as alleged? Section 8(a)(1) of the NLRA is a catch-all provision that prohibits the employer for interfering, restraining or coercing employees in any way with respect to the right to collective activity (e.g., joining and assisting a labor union, engaging in collective bargaining), while Section 8(a)(5) prohibits an employer from refusing to bargain with employee representatives. A violation of any of the Section 8(a) provisions by an employer constitutes a violation of 8(a)(1), thus the main legal issue for the NLRB to determine should be whether there was a Section 8(a)(5) violation.
The Section 8(a)(5) inquiry revolves around whether the employer is refusing to bargain with the employee representative (or union) on a matter that is considered a mandatory subject of bargaining. On the statutory side, Section 8(d) of the NLRA provides that “wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment [emphasis added]“ are considered subjects that employers are obliged to bargain in good faith with the employee representative/union, and US court decisions have interpreted “other terms and conditions of employment” broadly, ranging from readily understood issues such as changes to employee disciplinary rules, to lesser-known ones such as office cafeteria and vending machine prices (Ford Motor Co. v. NLRB, 441 U.S. 488 (1979)). Although it may be possible to make analogous arguments to existing mandatory subjects (e.g., AI doing the work of a union worker likened to a form of subcontracting, which is a mandatory subject), there has not been any significant court decisions that specifically address whether AI replacement of union work constitutes a mandatory bargaining subject, although some U.S. states, like Washington, are attempting at introducing such requirement into law. As such, at the moment, the issue depends on the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between the employer and the union. In the current case, given SAG-AFTRA’s position on AI in its previous strike with the WGA in 2023, if SAG-AFTRA had the foresight to stipulate the use of generative AI in place of any union work in Fortnite as a mandatory subject of bargaining, or at least require advance notice to SAG-AFTRA, SAG-AFTRA would appear to have a prima facie basis for its 8(a)(5) claim.
On the other hand, if Epic’s litigation record in recent years is any indication, they will likely contest SAG-AFTRA’s unfair labor practice claim. One possible line of argument from Epic may be questioning whether voicing AI Vader is in fact union work in the first place. As mentioned, the AI Vader was able to respond in real-time to any topic raised by the players like all generative-AI based chatbots, but also fully voiced in character, which makes it unlike other human-voiced digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri, whose voiced responses were scripted ahead of time and comparatively very limited in scope. Epic may thus argue that there is no feasible way to replicate AI Vader via putting an entire corps of human voice actors taking shifts in recording booths answering players’ questions in real-time; pre-recording responses is impracticable unless the scope of player questions to which AI Vader would give a response to are significantly reduced, at which point the AI Vader would no longer function like an AI chatbot and more like an “evil Siri” instead. In this connection, Epic may also argue that it is similarly unfeasible to just have the human voice actor pre-record words from which a response is pieced together through reading them back in a proper order, as even though a typical English conversation may only involve 2,000-4,000 words, there would still be no way to account for all possible instances of Star Wars lore vocabulary that players may ask. This method, however, raises an interesting question as to whether SAG-AFTRA would consider the result acceptable, given that a LLM would still likely be needed to come up with the response before the pre-recorded words are further processed to make the resulting response as natural as possible (e.g., accounting for voice inflection).
Despite Epic’s willingness to litigate, it is extremely likely that the parties will settle the dispute long before the NLRB proceeding renders a decision on the matter, given the possible room for the parties to reach a compromise. Regardless of the legal result or the lack thereof, the AI Darth Vader in Fortnite will likely retain referential value on the potential of and issues arising from re-creations of famous fictional characters with generative AI, as well as a sort of “datapoint” for a specific point in time on how much the general consumer is willing to accept generative AI being used not just in the background but as part of the final creative product – as mentioned, the video game industry is in sore need for a solution to the unsustainable increases in cost, time and resources in video game production, and even if generative AI is unlikely to be the answer, its use cases in video games will almost certainly continue to grow for the next few years despite the consumer hostility.
As an additional footnote, three weeks after its unfair labor practice charge against Epic, SAG-AFTRA announced on June 11, 2025 that they have tentatively accepted the latest draft of the Interactive Media Agreement and the strike would be officially suspended once the terms are finalized in the following weeks. While the terms of the new Interactive Media Agreement are not available at the time of this writing, SAG-AFTRA’s press release lauded the new 3-year agreement for its better safeguards regarding AI use by the video game industry, such as the mandatory informed consent from the human performer and compensation for “Digital Replicas”, it also recognized work on a new deal must start immediately afterwards, since three years is an eternity for generative AI to evolve and the new agreement may be rendered ineffective at protecting its members by that time.
Given the attention from all sides of the debate, the use of generative AI in video games should continue to be a hot topic for some time to come. For those wishing to engage in prognostication in industry trends, the games that are scheduled to launch in 2026 may be instructive, including the 800-pound gorilla known as Grand Theft Auto VI.
