What just happened? The use of AI to recreate the voice of the late James Earl Jones for Darth Vader in Fortnite has run into more controversy. Soon after players managed to make the character swear and say racially charged slurs, actors union SAG-AFTRA has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Llama Productions, a subsidiary of Epic Games.
In 2022, Jones, who passed away in 2024, gave his blessing to the artificial recreations of the Darth Vader voice, a role he had occupied for 45 years. The company creating the convincing imitations, Respeecher, says it trains text-to-speech models using recordings of actors who can no longer play parts.
The AI voice technology was used to bring Vader back to Fortnite last week. Not only are players able to recruit the Sith Lord, but they can also speak directly with him using Fortnite's in-game audio chat functionality.
Fortnite launched an AI-powered Darth Vader modeled after the voice of James Earl Jones and it's going as well as you might expect: pic.twitter.com/I8mMq76eEB
– IGN (@IGN) May 16, 2025
The move has incurred the wrath of actors' union SAG-AFTRA, which has long rallied against the use of AI. It wrote that it does support the rights of members and estates to use their digital replicas in any way they see fit. "However, we must protect our right to bargain terms and conditions around uses of voice that replace the work of our members, including those who previously did the work of matching Darth Vader's iconic rhythm and tone in video games."
The union adds that Llama Productions chose to replace the work of human performers with AI, something the company allegedly did without providing any notice of their intent to do this and without bargaining with SAG-AFTRA over appropriate terms.
The filing isn't because AI was used in this instance – Jones' estate had agreed to it – it's because Llama Productions used the voices without telling the union or giving it a chance to negotiate terms. That's considered bad-faith bargaining under labor law.
In July 2024, after 18 months of negotiations, SAG-AFTRA performers who work on video games began striking after negotiations with publishers over the use of generative AI broke down. Two weeks ago, major video game companies involved in negotiations said they had made their "best and last" offer in negotiations to end the strike. The union filed a response, proposing a list of new terms.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long before gamers were able to make Vader swear and use slurs. Fortnite quickly updated the guardrails to ensure Vader doesn't say anything unbecoming of a respected villain.
Fortnite's AI-generated Darth Vader voice sparks SAG-AFTRA legal complaint
