A few hours ago, reports appeared that Larian is using generative artificial intelligence during the development of its new role-playing game Divinity, in particular to come up with ideas, create filler text, develop concept art and create materials for PowerPoint presentations. In the same Bloomberg articleLarian CEO Sven Vincke tried to balance these revelations with a promise that Divinity will not directly contain any AI-generated content, noting that “everything is created by humans; We write everything ourselves.”
As with generative artificial intelligence in game development in general, the revelation has sparked outrage on the internet—anger made all the more acute by the love that has so far been directed at Larian, makers of amazing fantasy role-playing games with sexy bears and demons. Inevitably, some of the outrage comes from people who seem minimally familiar with game development and, in some cases, haven't read the report in full (unfortunately, it's behind the Bloomberg paywall). However, some of them belong to other game developers.
“Imagine your team creating generational entertainment, and then immediately turning around and using damn ChatGPT to create concept art on your IP.” writes Mitch Dyer, writer Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Star Wars: Squadrons, addition that “we write everything ourselves” cannot be combined with “we use artificial intelligence for filler text.”
“If you use it for concept art, you are replacing people” observes Jeff Talbot, senior concept artist at the company Remainder 2 Developed by Gunfire Games. “If you use it to write copy, you're replacing people. If you use it at all in product development, it's in the final product. Just don't use it.”
Among the developers who responded was former Larian employee and environment artist Selena Tobin. “Heed my review: I loved working at @larianstudios.com until AI came along,” Tobin writes. “Revise and change your direction like you did yesterday. Show your employees a little respect. They are world class and don’t need the help of artificial intelligence to come up with amazing ideas.”
The reaction continues to grow. Vincke sent our terrifying office friend. Yang Games statement expanding on the Bloomberg report and attempting to refute accusations that Larian intends to replace developers with generative artificial intelligence software or release a game consisting of AI-generated assets. Here is the statement in full:
We are constantly increasing the number of concept artists, writers and storytellers, actively setting up script rooms, conducting casting and recording of actors' performances, and also hiring translators.
Because concept art is clearly in demand, we have 23 concept artists and openings for more people. These artists create concept art day after day for ideas and use in production.
Everything we do is incremental and aimed at getting people to spend more time being creative.
Any ML tool used correctly is an addition to a creative team's or individual's workflow, not a replacement for skill or artistry.
We're exploring and understanding the cutting-edge capabilities of machine learning as a set of tools that creative people can use and seeing how it can make their daily lives easier, allowing us to create better games.
We are not releasing the game with any AI components and have no plans to cut teams to replace them with AI.
While I understand this topic brings up a lot of emotions, we constantly discuss it internally through the lens of making everyone's workday better, not worse.
Generative AI is still a dark and confusing pain in the ass that needs to be reported on for a number of reasons. First, there are many different generative AI tools out there other than big chatbots that are hard at work. involving the entire Internet culturecreating excuse for layoffs and helping to increase the share global carbon emissions. Some video game developers have created their own, proprietary and perhaps more responsibly used technologies for internal use, such as the world-building software used by plankback.
There are also older types of automation or machine learning tools that typically come bundled with new and improved AI genius, e.g. Embark technologies for robot animation V Arc Raiders. Vincke didn't specify what types of genetic AI Larian uses—in the statement above, he himself equates machine learning with genetic AI—but the Bloomberg report mentions PowerPoint, which has a lot of Microsoft Copilot stuff built into it.
Anecdotally, we know that many game developers use genAI tools without even talking about it. Generative AI is also used at different stages of development or production and in different disciplines, creating confusion about what degree of backlash is appropriate and what it means to claim that a game “contains” AI-generated material. I myself am sympathetic to the argument that if you've used generative AI in any aspect of development, it “exists” in your game regardless of whether the art assets look like chunks of rehydrated Fortnite.
In any case, I think we'll go back to Larian and ask for additional comments. If you prefer to read about Divinity itself – a turn-based continuation of the CRPG Divinity: Original Sin 2 – Here my own chat with Vinke. We haven't discussed generative AI. Naturally, I reproach myself for this. While I believed that Vincke was perhaps more “pragmatic” about technology than many (he is a CEO, after all, not a concept artist), it never really occurred to me that Larian might use such tools in any deliberate, systematic way.
