Turns out Broken SwordAI scaling tools have not been as effective as expected.
Revolution Software co-founder Charles Cecil talks about 2024 release Broken Sword – Templar Shadow: Reforged in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz published on Tuesday How the company is preparing for launch Broken Sword – Smoking Mirror: Reforged.
Remake Shadow of the Templars raised more than £618,000 (approximately US$825,000) on Kickstarter, but Cecil said the game cost much more. AI tools didn't help the company save money.
Cecil talked to a game developer in 2023 Revolution Software's intention to use artificial intelligence tools to reduce the “hard work” of artists And to save money. He said at the time that the tool, which he described as “laying the groundwork” for artists who then add “their own touches,” does in 10 minutes what would take an artist an hour. It also costs much less, he says.
“It costs about 20 percent of what it could do without AI,” Cecil told Game Developer in 2023. “So of course that has to be taken into account, but it’s also about eliminating the drudgery. To put this instrument in the same category as some others is frankly ridiculous.”
But looking back on the development in his conversation with GamesIndustry.biz, Cecil said the result of the AI tool was not “extremely satisfactory.” When asked whether using artificial intelligence tools was a “costly mistake,” Cecil answered in the affirmative.
He continued: “It just wasn’t the right fit for us.” Instead, Revolution Software artists redrew the background for the remake, he told GamesIndustry.biz. “It took longer, but the results were better,” he said. “So, for Broken Sword 2we just did this, we don't use any form of AI in regards to the backgrounds and character sprites. [are concerned]”
However, not all the AI tools it used were unsuccessful: Cecil told GamesIndustry.biz that the studio used “enhancement software” to improve “horribly compressed dialogue recordings” from Broken Sword – Smoking Mirror. Accentize's dxRevive tool uses “highly optimized artificial neural network-based algorithms” to enhance audio recordings. according to his website.
The only problem was that the studio found the tool right before release; I had to patch the game to update the sound.
Cecil has previously said that AI is vital to the remastering Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars
The artificial intelligence tool used in the 2024 game was created in collaboration with the University of York; and only data belonging to Revolution Software was transferred to it, Cecil told Game Developer in 2023. He defended the use of the tool as something that would boost the team's creativity.
“I will defend to the skies the fact that AI can do most of this work, and then humans step in and get creative,” he said. “We have human artists using their creative talents to create facial expressions, fix animations and work on details, but the basic work is no longer necessary.”
Cecil told GamesIndustry.biz that he made such statements “in good faith at the time,” but the controversy some of them caused wasn't necessarily a bad thing. “And I think actually if you take a game that's 30 years old and you remake it, you improve it, actually having a little bit of controversy is not a bad thing because it gives it relevance, it makes it modern,” he said.
For Broken Sword: Smoking MirrorFor the updated edition, Revolution Software is relying on Filipino animators, some of whom worked with Fil-Cartoons on the original game released in 1997, Cecil said. GamesIndustry.biz.
For the rest of the interview which you can read in full at GamesIndustry.biz.Cecil reflected on the history of Revolution Software—the challenges it faced under publisher THQ, and how it stayed afloat in recent years by self-publishing its own work.
Revolution Software has relied on Kickstarter backers for its latest games as well as back catalog sales, which are a “decimal point” for large publishers but “really good” for Revolution Software, Cecil said. Revolution Software, like the rest of the industry, had to struggle with its financial problems, and the pursuit of artificial intelligence was part of this conscious nature.
It didn't work out, but Cecil linked the “costly mistake” – which he certainly didn't know would be a mistake – to the revival of the franchise. “If I knew how much it would cost [make Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Reforged]we would never have had the courage to do that,” he told GamesIndustry.biz.
