The debate on the use of artificial intelligence in game development is in full swing, with many participants adopting a very strong stance on the issue. Larian Studios head Swen Vincke recently courted controversy by admitting the studio uses gen AI for creating concepts and prototypes, something that attracted the ire of the gaming community.
Indie darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was recently stripped of an award for AI use, adding fuel to the fire of the debate. The argument has lost all nuance, as people flock towards the two polarised positions of 'AI usage is always acceptable' and 'AI use isn't permissible under any circumstances'.
Not A Single Pixel of Witchfire is AI
As for the professionals, there is no consensus. Activision shamelessly put low-quality AI-generated art in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and Embark Studios included voice generation technology in Arc Raiders. Other studios believe AI use is acceptable for prototyping, so long as the final product doesn't include any AI generation.
Gears of War: Judgement and Bulletstorm director Adrian Chmielarz has a nuanced opinion on the matter, but he also revealed the extremes that his studio, The Astronauts, goes to, to avoid AI use. In an interview with PCGamesN, Chmielarz delved into the controversial subject.
"Nobody knows anything about [AI]," he says. "There's a couple of things I can say. The first is that anyone who believes you can make a good game using AI is absolutely dead wrong. There's absolutely no way. I'm using AI for visualisation, correcting my English, and I'm using the highest tiers of all the AI I bought. We don't have to worry too much right now."
Chmielarz goes on to speak about how AI use is interacting with the development of Witchfire, and the extreme stance of the studio on using the technology.
"On Witchfire, we have one simple rule: if I want to create an idea, I create an image in AI and show it to the guys and say, 'hey I'm imagining an enemy that would be this style', but not a single pixel can be AI in Witchfire," says Chmielarz. "It actually does cost us a lot more money."
He explains they outsourced some of the art for an upcoming update to a great artist, who used some of Photoshop's built-in AI tools, as many digital artists do.
"I told him, 'No, we can't do that. I know it's going to cost me more, it's going to take you a lot more time, but we need this to be AI free.' He actually went back to the old school pencil and paper, so he just sketched them, scanned them, with finishing touches in Photoshop without any use of AI," he explains.
Chmielarz finishes by saying he dislikes the effect AI will inevitably have on the creative arts, but, regardless, he does enjoy those Soviet versions of Britney Spears songs that are cropping up on YouTube.
Witchfire
Systems
- Released
- September 20, 2023
- ESRB
- r
- Developer(s)
- The Astronauts
- Publisher(s)
- The Astronauts
- Genre(s)
- Adventure, Shooter