Swen Vinke, the CEO of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity developer Larain, has responded to the intense backlash the studio has received since its use of generative AI was confirmed.
Yesterday, the Larian CEO stated the studio is using generative AI to explore ideas, expand on internal presentations, develop concept art, and write placeholder text, with Vinke saying “everyone at the company is more or less OK” with the way the technology is being implemented. He added the studio’s upcoming and newly-announced release Divinity won’t contain anything which has been AI-generated.
Soon after Vinke’s statements went live, however, he was met with backlash from fans as well as former Larian developers, which prompted the studio head to respond with his own post, stating: “Holy fuck guys we’re not ‘pushing hard’ for or replacing concept artists with AI.”
The Baldur’s Gate 3 head added Larian has “a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more”, with the artwork they create being original and something Vinke is “very proud” of.
Continuing further, Vinke said he was “asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI” during the interview with Bloomberg. “I answered that we 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”.
Vinke stated the studio uses “AI tools to explore references”, in the same way it uses the likes of 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,” he said. “There is no comparison.”
Larian hires its team of creatives for “their talent”, Vinke closed, and “not for their ability to do what a machine suggests”. He again reiterated the team can still “experiment with these tools to make their lives easier”.
In a further statement shared with IGN, Vinke again clarified that Larian is not looking to replace any of its developers with generative AI. It will also not be releasing a game which includes content made by the technology.
You can read Vinke’s statement in full below:
“We’ve been continuously increasing our pool of concept artists , writers and story-tellers, are actively putting together writer rooms, casting and recording performances from actors and hiring translators.
“Since concept art is being called out explicitly – we have 23 concept artists and have job openings for more. These artists are creating concept art day in day out for ideation and production use.
“Everything we do is incremental and aimed at having people spend more time creating.
“Any ML tool used well is additive to a creative team or individual’s workflow, not a replacement for their skill or craft.
“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.
“We are neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we 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.”
While many remain unconvinced of Vincke’s response, others have pointed out Larian is far from the only beloved studio to admit to using AI. The “Expedition 33 team freely admitted using AI and just won the most awards ever in The Game Awards history,” Washington Post reporter Gene Park noted on social media.
AI, of course, remains a key area of discussion across the industry, and reports of AI use are continuing to make headlines. Earlier this month, publisher Running with Scissors cancelled upcoming game Postal: Bullet Paradise – a co-op “bullet-heaven” first-person shooter from developer Goonswarm Games – after feedback to the reveal two days ago said much of the game appeared to have been made using generative AI.
Last month, meanwhile, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney said “AI will be involved in nearly all future production”, so having Steam games disclose whether they were built with AI makes about as much sense as telling us what kind of shampoo the developers use. More recently, Bethesda’s Todd Howard shared his own thoughts on the use of AI in video games, calling it a “tool” but one that can’t replace human intention.
As for Larian, it is working on Divinity, which was announced at The Game Awards with a rather gruesome and unsettling trailer. Vinke has since said Larian’s upcoming game is the studio “unleashed”, while confirming it will be a turn-based RPG.
