From the game studio that brought Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios subtly announced that their next feature game, Divinity, will be using generative AI to help with game development. According to Bloomberg interview with Larian Studios co-founder, Swen Vincke, that Polygon references, he mentions that AI would aid in menial tasks but ascertains that the actual game will be created by humans. Earlier this year, Vincke shared the same sentiment during an interview with GameSpot:
Vincke said Larian currently uses machine learning systems to help automate game-development tasks that “nobody wants to do.”
“It’s the obvious things, like a motion capture cleaning or voice editing or, something very specific. Retargeting. So that is basically if you play with different species, you want to be able to reuse an animation on a different species that are in different size, and then they’re doing certain interactions with others,” Vincke explained.
Despite the reassurance that AI would only be used in boring tasks and using AI as a tool only, the backlash from fans and players quickly flooded the internet to the point where Vincke had to make a public statement on X.
We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.
Larian Studios joins a growing trend of gaming studios using AI in their workflow systems, which some people speculate is the reason for the recent video game layoffs due to AI automation in all aspects of game development. AI has been a hot topic for the last year in the video game industry, with varying opinions and viewpoints from all types of players, but Vincke remains strong on his opinion on AI:
“We’ve hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier.”
Divinity is currently in the early stages of development with no release date confirmed as of yet.