Larian Responds to Backlash over Generative AI: Divinity Won't Be Released with Any AI Components

Larian Studios has a good reputation among gamers, with its CEO, Swen Vincke, usually saying all the right words and not performing any shady practices. However, his recent words made fans concerned, and the apple of discord is, not surprisingly, AI.

Bloomberg says that Larian has been "pushing hard on generative AI," although Vincke claims it hasn’t led to much efficiency gains. He also promised that Divinity, its freshly announced RPG, won't be featuring any AI-generated content: "Everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves."

According to IGN, Larian is "neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI," considering the tech "something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone's working day better, not worse."

But its creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, work on PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art, and write placeholder text, as Bloomberg unveiled. "I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it," Vincke said, but fans were not happy to receive the news.

"I'm gonna go the extreme route here and say that AI concept art is just as bad as in game assets. Not only because creating concept art is such an important job for real artists, but because of the obvious fact that you are not creating anything new, none of our favorite characters in all of gaming weren't designed by AI, they were designed by humans," shared one Redditor.

"Love how this article proved gen AI is garbage. Pushing hard for it, yet it hasn't actually improved workflow, pushback by people in the company but executives are like, no, everyone likes it now because they will lose their jobs if they don't! So disappointing from Sven," another said.

A former Larian artist also expressed her discontent: "Consider my feedback: I loved working at [Larian] until AI. Reconsider and change your direction, like, yesterday. Show your employees some respect. They are world-class & do not need AI assistance to come up with amazing ideas."

Vincke soon responded to the backlash, seemingly criticizing Bloomberg's phrasing: 

He clarified that he was asked about concept art and the studio's use of generative AI, so he answered that they use it "to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world-class artists."

He said that Larian uses AI tools just like Google and art books – to explore references, seeing it "as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art."

That didn't placate fans much, as many are of the strong opinion that game developers should not use any genAI, especially considering how it feeds on other people's works. "Honestly, next time, just lie. Just say 'no,'" advised one developer.

"Hopefully the last few hours have been very illuminating for you guys. I'd recommend taking this to your upper management and using it to remind them that the player doesn't like genAI," an X/Twitter user shared.

This should be a great AI case for other companies to take notes from, but I'm afraid we won't be able to avoid AI altogether. Let's hope Larian keeps its word, and Divinity turns out as brilliant as Baldur's Gate 3, without AI ruining the experience.

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