Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke has responded to backlash after confirming that the gaming studio is using generative AI as part of its game development process. The studio has also confirmed that the forthcoming Divinity game won’t include any AI-generated content.
Beloved indie darlings Larian Studios is the latest video game developer to admit to using generative AI as part of its game development.
The update came from CEO Swen Vincke, who, in an interview with Bloomberg, said the company was looking to improve efficiency with AI. Vincke hopes that using AI will enable Larian to accelerate development and release games more quickly than Baldur’s Gate 3.
Vincke would explain in the interview, “Everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves”, but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text, per Bloomberg. Aware that this will face pushback from fans, Vincke notes that company employees were concerned at first but seem less so after seeing it in practice.
As the article would state, “The use of generative 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 it,’ Vincke said.”
Despite this, Vincke would admit in the interview that the AI tools haven’t massively improved efficiency. Still, he’s promising that no generative AI art or assets would be included in the upcoming Divinity game. “Everything is human actors, we’re writing everything ourselves,” Vincke said.
While the company is evaluating AI as one solution to reduce development time for Divinity, the team has also reconsidered its approach to quest and story design, developing both in parallel rather than linearly. Additionally, despite using AI, the company is still expanding.
At GDC last year, Vincke would share with Eurogamer that the company doesn’t see AI “as a replacement for developers, but we do see it as something that allows us to do more stuff.”
He continued: “I do see it as an additional tool that you can put on top of the things that are in the game. And we’re certainly doing experiments with that. But as I said, it’s still far from being usable in that sense.”
AI has continued to have a very strained relationship with gamers in recent years. With the ongoing mass firings of developers at nearly every major game studio, audiences appear reluctant to play games made by AI rather than human developers.
Recently, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 faced significant backlash after being caught using generative AI to design various cosmetic features in a “Studio Ghibli” style. Fortnite was also caught in a scandal as fans believed they had spotted generative AI art within the game, prompting Epic CEO Tim Sweeney to come out against mandatory AI disclosure in games.
In regards to Divinity, Vencke is promising that the forthcoming game is “us unleashed”, and confirmed the series will remain a turn-based RPG.
Just this week, a current-gen upgrade was also released for Divinity: Original Sin 2 for Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X | S. So, if you haven’t played those games before and want to get caught up on the series, now you can.
Following reporting on Vencke’s comments, the CEO would take to X / Twitter to share a statement clarifying his stance on generative AI in game development.
The CEO would go on to say, “Holy f*ck guys we’re not “pushing hard” for or replacing concept artists with AI,” he declared. “We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.”
He continued: “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.”
Vincke would conclude by sharing that Larian is not enforcing developers to use these tools and that they are free to use them as they see fit. “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.”
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