This means if the characters are encountered in creator-made islands in the game, they will now speak to the player in an AI-generated voice if the creator chooses to enable LLM-powered NPCs.<\/p>\n
The main purpose for this is Epic\u2019s upcoming \u2018conversations\u2019 feature, which it plans to take out of its experimental phase at the end of the month and roll out from July 30.<\/p>\n
When it rolls out, users who create Fortnite islands will be able to add their own AI-powered NPCs who can have real-time conversations with the player, powered by Google<\/a>\u2018s Gemini AI and ElevenLabs\u2019 Eleven V3.<\/p>\n 36x FORTNITE SKINS NOW HAVE AI VOICES<\/p>\n Epic Games says these voices are powered by performances from independent professionals who agreed to have their performances used to develop voice models<\/p>\n UEFN creators can begin using these AI voices on July 30 pic.twitter.com\/B8nuCOSwOq<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Shiina (@ShiinaBR) July 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n When it announced the conversations feature back in April, Epic said: \u201cInstead of authoring dialogue trees for characters in your islands, conversations transforms an NPC into an AI-powered character capable of unscripted dialogue and interactions with players, like a quest giver or narrator.<\/p>\n \u201cYou define who the character is with simple prompts \u2013 how they think, what they know, and how they behave \u2013 and then select a voice that matches their persona.\u201d<\/p>\n Of the 36 characters affected \u2013 all of which are original Fortnite characters like Fishstick, Haylee Skye, Cuddle Team Leader and The Imagined \u2013\u00a0 17 have had their voices and personas locked down by Epic so they \u201csound and react in a way you\u2019d expect right out of the box\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIndependent professional actors\u201d According to Epic, each character\u2019s AI voice is \u201cpowered by performances captured from independent professional actors specifically for use in developer-made islands\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe actors agreed to have their performances used to develop voice models that create the spoken responses for these LLM-powered Fortnite characters. Our next step is to work with the relevant guilds and character voice actors who have previously worked on Fortnite Battle Royale to explore opportunities to make their original voices available across the Fortnite ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortnite has experimented with AI voices in the past, with mixed results. The game added a Darth Vader chatbot during one of its seasons last year \u2013 this allowed players to interact with the character, who responded with the iconic voice of late actor James Earl Jones.<\/p>\n This naturally led to players trying to \u2018break\u2019 the chatbot\u2019s restrictions<\/a> by tricking Vader into swearing or saying otherwise inappropriate things.<\/p>\n Epic said Jones\u2019s AI-powered voice was used with permission from his family, but American actors\u2019 labour union SAG-AFTRA criticised the practice<\/a>, arguing that the tool still took work away from other actors who could\u2019ve voiced the character in his video game form, such as those who voiced Vader in previous games\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear whether Epic\u2019s statement that its AI voices were supplied by \u201cindependent professional actors\u201d means these actors aren\u2019t part of SAG-AFTRA or any other actors\u2019 union.<\/p>\n<\/a>Epic previously had a Darth Vader chatbot in Fortnite, with mixed results.<\/p>\n