Update: Swen Vincke, CEO of Larian Studios, has issued a statement to IGN elaborating on his comments about the use of AI tools internally. He emphasized his initial mention of concept art, adding that Larian currently has 23 concept artists and has job openings for more.
“Any ML tool [machine learning] used well is additive to a creative team or individual’s workflow, not a replacement for their skill or craft,” the statement reads. “We are researching and understanding the cutting edge of ML as a toolset for creatives to use and see how it can make their day-to-day lives easier, which will let us make better games.”
Vincke insists again that Larian is neither releasing a game with AI components nor is looking at “trimming down teams” to replace them with AI.
“While I understand it’s a subject that invokes a lot of emotion, it’s something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone’s working day better, not worse,” Vincke wrote.
The CEO further elaborated on the topic via social media, saying that Larian uses generative AI to “explore things,” not to develop concept art, and that it’s the artists who do that.
“We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use Google and art books,” Vincke’s post reads. “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.”
Moreover, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, who interviewed Vincke, shared the portion of the rough transcript that pertains to the CEO’s comments on the use of AI.
Some notable excerpts include Vincke saying that concept artists use AI tools for exploration, while “some scripters” will probably use chatGPT for stub text, while others will write it themselves. “It’s really up to them,” the CEO said.
When pressed about Vincke’s comments about AI tools not quite accelerating the development process, he insisted that things like experimentation, white boxing, and lots of applications and retargeting and cleaning and editing” take a lot of time. So, in his words, these tools “allow you to do more.”
“This is a tech driven industry, so you try stuff,” Vincke said. “You can’t afford not to try things because if somebody finds the golden egg and you’re not using it, you’re dead in this industry.”
Original story: Swen Vincke, CEO of Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios, has shared the studio’s approach to generative AI, saying that everyone at Larian is “more or less OK” with how teams are using the controversial technology.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Vincke said the emerging technology hasn’t led to “big gains in efficiency.” Yet, according to Bloomberg, Larian has been pushing hard on gen AI, with creators often using AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art, and write placeholder text.
The CEO added that there won’t be any AI-generated content in Divinity, Larian’s upcoming RPG announced last week at the Game Awards. “Everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves,” he said.
As with elsewhere in the industry, the use of gen AI has led to some pushback at Larian, “but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using said,” Vincke told Bloomberg.
In one such case, an artist who worked on Baldur’s Gate 3 took to Bluesky to say that she loved working at Larian until AI came into the picture. “Reconsider and change your direction, like, yesterday,” she wrote. “Show your employees some respect. They are world-class & do not need AI assistance to come up with amazing ideas.”
Larian CEO says the creative process can’t be accelerated
In the interview, Vincke also spoke about Larian’s goal to cut down on development time and finish the recently unveiled game Divinity in less time than Baldur’s Gate 3, which took six years to make, adding that “I think three to four years is much healthier than six years.”
One of the tactics being implemented is to develop many of Divinity’s quests and storylines in parallel rather than in linear fashion. Doing so requires larger writing and scripting teams. The studio now has 530 employees across seven offices in Europe, North America, and Asia.
Yet, Vincke said “the creative process itself actually is something you cannot accelerate,” and that giving writers, designers, and artists time to iterate and explore ideas is what led to the success of Baldur’s Gate 3.
“People underestimate how many times we’re implementing something and realize in the middle that it’s just not going to work,” Vincke said.
This sentiment seems contrarian to the use of AI for placeholder text and concept art, along with the fact that, according to Vincke himself, the technology hasn’t led to a substantial change in efficiency.
Generative AI has faced similar scrutiny elsewhere in the industry from both players and developers. Early this year, 11 Bit Studios, developer of base-builder The Alters, apologized for not disclosing the use of gen AI, a disclosure that is part of the submission process for some platforms. The studio said it used AI-generated assets as works in progress, as well as AI-powered translation tools for “additional last minute translations.”
The situation around The Alters‘ generative AI use is just one of many this year, which also included Frontier Developments backtracking on its decision to use gen AI in Jurassic World Evolution 3 after fan backlash, a French actress taking legal action against Aspyr Media over allegations of using AI to replicate Lara Croft’s voice performance in Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered without her permission, and Broken Sword co-creator Charles Cecil saying AI upscaling was an “expensive mistake.“