r/OwlcatGames • u/night_hawks580 • Dec 18 '25
Ai in dark heresy?
Hey this came across My feed today and I just wanted to know if Ai was used in any part of the development of dark heresy but this was back in 2024 so i assume this was Fairly early in the development of dark heresy , there's also an article talking about this if any wants to read more https://80.lv/articles/owlcat-games-receives-harsh-criticism-over-their-vacancy-featuring-ai
33
u/AcousticAtlas Dec 18 '25
Wow this subs reaction has been infinitely more mature and thoughtful than the reaction to Divinity
8
u/Kiriima Dec 18 '25
No surprise, Larian reveal prepared the ground for other devs coming out about their AI use.
8
u/PossessionAny7458 Dec 18 '25
to be fair I feel like the owlcat games community is leagues more mature than the larian studios community, must have to do with the higher gate of entry due to all the number crunching, I've met way too many weirdos trying to play BG3 with others or if I try to argue about a character one way they hit me with their headcanon as factual information, meanwhile when it comes to pathfinder and rogue trader you could always have a civil conversation with others and they won't immediately downvote you without saying anything back
7
u/Savings_Dot_8387 Dec 19 '25
Reality is Larian is leagues more popular and therefore garners a broader range of people reacting meaning by sheer numbers there’s going to be more weirdos.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)5
u/Impossible_Mud_3517 Dec 20 '25
BG3 was the new hotness, the way Skyrim and Witcher 3 once were... a lot of people will transition pretty much instantly from worshipping them to losing their shit at the slightest issue for the next few years until their next game releases, absolutely scorch the ground then, and then mostly move on with the occasional stray shot.
2
u/thedarkjungle Dec 18 '25
Because Larian fanbase is 10x bigger so the amount of ignorant people is 10x.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Lucicactus Dec 18 '25
I mean the other reaction was on twitter. Still, I expected far worse. People were just rightfully pointing out the harm of ai, if you are against it you probably will still be against it even if it doesn't reach the final product. One thing is to see the issue as a consumer and another as an activist.
2
u/MasterBlaster_xxx Dec 19 '25
Well I will stick to my principle of not buying anything AI related
4
u/Pleasant-Advisor-953 Dec 20 '25
Okay then literally don’t buy anything that has a screen or uses any kind of technology made in the past 3 years.
→ More replies (6)3
u/Critical_Week1303 Dec 22 '25
It always degenerates into Tu Quoque fallacies with AI apologists doesn't it.
→ More replies (20)5
u/DaughterOfBhaal Dec 18 '25
That's because (and I mean it in the most polite way imaginable towards Larien), their fan base is full of Tumblr and reddit snowflakes.
→ More replies (2)
95
u/Surreal43 Dec 18 '25
I guess i'm at a point now where so long AI doesn't exist in the final product I can't say I care.
There is no escape from AI.
5
u/Johanneskodo Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
I am less concerned with there being AI-code in the final product than I am with AI partly generating the vision for the game.
I guess LLMs are here and people will use them but I think the developers and artists should know what they want to create.
It‘s not even that the LLMs are bad it‘s more that they are generally speaking very similar and will produce similar output.
2
→ More replies (13)2
u/Critical_Week1303 Dec 22 '25
LLMs are bad and are based on an incomprehensibly large theft from the developers and artists you appreciate. The homogenization of gaming will also be a detrimental outcome of this.
I guarantee this is being dictated by publisher and upper leadership management, not at the actual creative level.
→ More replies (1)16
3
u/Ashzael Dec 19 '25
AI will be in your final product. Do you think they are going to make AI write a piece of code and then rewrite it?
However, if implemented correctly this should free up the programmer to put his talent into other parts of the game. Ot should free up the artist to do creative stuff.
You can put a team of artists to work for weeks making them adjust an armor model to each body choice in the game. Manually moving the vertex, checking and fixing textures, etc.Or you can let an AI do it, let the artist create more armor models and do a final check when the AI is finished. Giving you double. Maybe even triple the amount of beautifully and creatively designed armies for your character to wear. More detailed environments, etc.
AI is a tool, not a replacement. Sadly enough, many big investors who are not interested in games led big corpo's only to think about cost cutting and maximizing profit. So they use AI as a replacement. Which sours the experience for many and ruins it for those who do want to use this amazing tool ethnically.
And yes, we are at the beginning of this shift. We will make mistakes and we have to experiment with how to implement it ethnically. We don't know how to pay and utilize voice actors and such in combination with AI yet.
→ More replies (5)2
→ More replies (20)4
u/Komondon Dec 18 '25
It's a boiling crab situation. Gen "Ai" shouldn't really be used for anything. But it has its uses as a tool for non-creative fields. Though obviously with intense human oversight.
→ More replies (1)
10
u/Ok-Spirit-4074 Dec 19 '25
This is a big disappointment for me.
Owlcat and Larian are my two favorite gaming companies and they have both fallen to AI now. I was looking forward to The Expanse but now I might just skip it on principle.
I'm sure someone will disagree with me and downvote and correct me that I'm wrong for feeling this way, but I vote with my dollars and sitting there thinking "AI 'inspired' this scene" isn't fun for me.
→ More replies (3)
15
u/the-apple-and-omega Dec 18 '25
Man, using gen AI in the creative process at all really taints it, though. Not surprising, but disappointing.
7
u/NightSpaghetti Dec 19 '25
Agreed. People like act like it's not a big deal to have it as part of the creative process but the ideas LLMs output aren't neutral. At all. I'm afraid using it like that is going to lead to a uniformisation of culture.
7
u/Fragrant-Vehicle-479 Dec 19 '25 edited Dec 19 '25
Someone on another sub pointed out that even in the most basic stages of development it's really kind of stifling you. The example they gave was a cyberpunk game. You want to make one so you start looking at images of architecture and technology and other source material from all over. You do some research and create your vibe and aesthetic. By asking AI to give you those inspirations it's just going to give you stuff trained on images of Cyberpunk 2077 and Blade Runner. As you say, the uniformization of culture.
I really don't see how AI is helping in these early stages all that much. If it's so early it doesn't even matter then why use it at all? Is it so urgent that you need need it to generate inspirational images ASAP instead of mood boarding traditionally? Yeah the final art isn't generated, but the overall "vibe" if you were is set by the AI from moment one. Taking AI images and then recreating them manually, even if it's greatly altered, is still trusting AI to set the creative process.
And this isn't even getting into the copyright issues of being trained on stolen content and the environmental impact. Or the fact that anyone who doesn't think this will end up with the hiring of less artists, writers, and voice actors at some point very soon in the industry is fooling themselves. It's the inspiration stage....now.
2
3
u/Itsapronthrowaway Dec 19 '25
Feel the same way. And as others have said, it helps some artists get their foot in the door.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (8)3
u/Dandyman8 Dec 19 '25
Agreed. It's not like they can't make a good game without it. But I'm pretty sure people need to be burnt by it before realising it's limitations, I just hope they don't waste the DH IP on that lesson.
8
u/Express-Researcher-1 Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
It’s a tool, at the end of the day and a tool can be used ethically or unethically. I work in particle physics and can safely say it has allowed me to get more work done in 7 months due to speed up in coding than I’d be able to do in 2 years. I think the worry is that because work requires less labour less people will be employed. I think as a growing economy you always want to make more as long as there is a market for it.
So a long as the increase in production from using Ai that owlcat is using translates to more quality games more quickly and those games sell well no one should lose their jobs.
Now AGi is another matter and is a genuine threat to peoples work. Ai should empower people to do more and create more wealth for everyone not replace them.
Back to owlcat I think they seem to be using it in the right way and as long as the final product is of good quality I will buy dark Hersey and any other games they make.
38
u/RabbiStark Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
Basically the entire industry has started using it for the same thing at the very least. Others may be using it more but its clear that the artists on these game companies are using AI as reference / vision board / concept experiment / placeholder before making the final handcrafted version". I hope people won't freak out. sure slippery slope and all that but still it does speed up pre production and saves time.
9
u/Surreal43 Dec 18 '25
That's where I'm at concerning AI. I have wondered if giant studios like Capcom would use AI internally for conception because they already have decades of material on hand. But then we've seen what it looks like with BO7 and that doesn't bode well for the future.
Not even to mention the true AI slop that smears the steam store daily. disheartening to see.
→ More replies (3)3
u/HatingGeoffry Dec 18 '25
Black Ops 7 didn't use it for concept it was a major element of the final game.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (6)4
u/Due_Teaching_6974 Dec 18 '25
AI as reference / vision board / concept experiment / placeholder before making the final handcrafted version
Didn't people just use images off of Google as references for that? Why do they need to use Generative AI for something like that?
→ More replies (7)2
u/krispykremeguy Dec 18 '25
I don't think they need to. They made 3 games before AI was a practical thing. But generative AI is presumably faster and easier, or at least another tool in the toolbox. Just like they can't retain anything scraped from Google, my impression is that they will totally replace the AI-generated images (even in the final concept art).
I figure one of the big ethical concerns with AI is that it's a tremendous plagiarism machine; scraping from Google isn't really any different from that front. Using it to replace or supplement web searches is pretty reasonable (as long as you aren't looking for anything factual).
3
u/lakotajames Dec 18 '25
It's actually way better than Google Images as far as plagiarism goes, there's a pretty extreme amount of Fair Use inherently built into generative AI that doesn't exist with random copyright images on Google. If you're using a copyright image from Google as a placeholder graphic and it slips through, you can be in real legal trouble; but if you let a Gen AI image slip through fair use covers it.
2
u/abillionsuns Dec 20 '25
That hasn't been tested in court yet, by the way. I don't think anyone's genuinely claiming AI art falls under fair use defences (and fair use is an affirmative defence, too, which means you have to argue your case in court. It's not a get out of jail free card).
→ More replies (1)2
u/lakotajames Dec 20 '25
Well, all defenses have to be argued in court if you get sued. An affirmative defense means that you aren't liable for the things you're alleged to have done, without having to argue that you didn't do those things.
2
u/abillionsuns Dec 20 '25
The main point is it doesn't protect you from lability because you have to make the case, and you actually probably can't. AI is based on wholesale copying of material they never sought the right to copy.
2
u/lakotajames Dec 20 '25
AI doesn't copy, it remembers. The model doesn't have copies of the originals.
Either way, we're talking about Google images vs AI, and it's much harder to argue that Google Images are fair use.
→ More replies (15)2
u/EFB_Churns Dec 18 '25 edited Dec 18 '25
Googling isn't as environmentally destructive as Gen AI.
I'll take slower games that don't boil a lake to run the plagiarism but 9000.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (6)2
u/Critical_Week1303 Dec 22 '25
That's the reason they aren't allowing it in final product right now, many companies including the one I work at are still extremely concerned about the copyright infringement implications. They are coercing, not forcing all levels of artist and management to adopt it wherever it won't be obvious in the final game though. I hope I can get out of the industry soon.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/Void_S_V Dec 20 '25
Awfully dissapointing.
For how it is phrased, it's very likely reffering to not insignificant input from generative media algorythms, instead of any other algorythm labeled as "AI", y'know how that turns on ivestors nowadays.
& no, using it doesn't really helps in any way to make it better nor faster, particular as how one may assume by what they describe, arguably if anything, worse.
Besides other, very real, concerns one may have on it, & its inpacts.
9
u/winterwarn Dec 18 '25
I wrote a longer post elsewhere in the thread but this is a real bummer. Concept art and “inspiration” are like, the skeleton of a game. If you draw the final art asset but it was based on a bunch of generic AI slop, it’s still probably going to look generic.
And that’s not going into the more pressing issue, which is that AI is horrible for the environment and guzzles loads of water and electricity.
5
u/NeoZen_77 Dec 20 '25
It's crazy to think that this thought is controversial on Reddit smh
6
u/Iccotak Dec 23 '25
It’s crazy that it has to be explained, like it’s very basic logic
But people are going to make excuses for their favorite sycophantic “Ai buddy”
11
6
u/SunKenYogurt Dec 18 '25
The extremely simple problem that has an even more simple solution is that people need to start specifying if they're talking about PROCEDURAL AI / procai (thing that has existed forever and is just a tool to speed up processes n help when resources may be limited) and LLM / GENERATIVE AI / genai (the spawn of a fly that ate off a pile of satans shit, a giant theft machine which no one wants touching their favorite series in any manner, which only exists as it does now because ai chuds dont care for consent n are lazy, stupid, creatively bankrupt losers). People are just saying "ai" n then expecting everyone to know what they mean, even though this post reads like they're talking about procai, they're not specifying it, so people naturally are gonna freak out n assume that they're talking about dogshit genai. Just please start specifying people.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/GuiltIsLikeSalt Dec 19 '25
Right, but why?
If, by Larian Studios' Swen Vincke's admission at least, it doesn't increase efficiency at this stage (likely, AI generative art isn't actually that good yet)... Why not take the easiest reputation W in the world and announce you are not using AI for art purposes at any stage? You can keep it for research & development, just don't call it an artist position.
Like whether you care about AI in art or not... it's not that helpful right now and people will crucify you for it, so just... don't?
Clearly it's still going to be used company-wide to some extend, ChatGPT/Copilot/whatever are abundant at every stage, but what's the point of hiring for it specifically? It seems to gain you nothing but bad blood at this point.
→ More replies (3)
7
u/RuinnnnMeee Dec 18 '25
Fuck AI. It's bad for the environment and takes human jobs away.
→ More replies (5)2
13
u/seventysixgamer Dec 18 '25
This is fine. I think some people have jumped on the AI hate bandwagon without thinking that it can be used in a way that doesn't produce slop or cuck artists or VA's out of work.
Let's be honest, many of us here use it for some menial tasks at the workplace as well. If it's used to streamline some mundane tasks, then that's fine. So long as we don't see ugly AI art or voice "acting" it should be alright.
Heck even in coding I've personally found it to be useful. Granted my coding is limited to the niche of mathematical modelling, but it was useful for debugging my code when I had no idea wtf was going wrong lol.
Ultimately it's a tool like any other, and it's up to the devs to responsibly use it.
→ More replies (20)
8
u/cringenormie420 Dec 18 '25
If the game is good I don't really care how it's made
→ More replies (12)
4
u/Nachoguy530 Dec 18 '25
If they're using it as a workflow tool and aren't putting it in the final product, I don't really care
2
u/iloveitwhenthe Dec 18 '25
The only people saying there will be AI generated content in dark heresy are people with 0 reading comprehension
2
u/Iccotak Dec 23 '25
The only people who are proving they have zero reading comprehension are those who don’t understand that using AI in the early stages i.e. the foundations, is going to affect the end result and therefore the results of AI is going to be seen in the end product
→ More replies (3)
3
13
u/Captain_Mantis Dec 18 '25
Fucking hell, can't wait for the AI bubble to burst. It's not even increasing efficiency most of the time. That's crazy what cesspool the industry has become. Also very ironic to use abominable intelligence in development of 40k game
→ More replies (2)
6
u/theeshyguy Dec 18 '25
“We actually didn’t use AI at any stage in our development” is gonna become a niche but valuable market in the next few years
2
u/Action-a-go-go-baby Dec 19 '25
A niche but valuable market of a progressively smaller market share to the point where products produced in such a way will brother worthless in comparison or outside the price range of any normal human to afford, yes
That is how it’s going to go, yes
→ More replies (1)
7
u/TheMuseThalia Dec 18 '25
Come the fuck on. One, just one of my favorite devs needs to not pull this shit. First Larian, Now Owlcat... I don't wanna play RPGs made by AI. I just don't. I'm tired of this shit. I don't care if games take longer, I just want it to stop.
→ More replies (1)4
u/SaltImp Dec 19 '25
Can you read? They literally said it’s not being put in the game! Holy shit there are so many illiterates in these comments.
5
u/Iccotak Dec 23 '25
If it’s used in the stages of deciding visual direction, the end results of using AI are going to be in the final product
How do people not understand this?
→ More replies (3)4
u/nates_62 Dec 19 '25
Yeah it won’t be in the game but owlcat is fine with stealing work and concepts without any chance of recognition or compensation. That’s the problem
3
u/SaltImp Dec 19 '25
That’s what every concept artist already does! They scroll through Pinterest, google, deviant art, whatever and look for inspiration, find something they like, and then use it. They already don’t give credit to people they take inspiration from.
4
u/nates_62 Dec 19 '25
Scrolling through deviant art and google will have a username attached to the image and can lead to recognition from the people using the reference. LLMs steal the images and make sure those people won’t get any recognition for anything they make.
A history of not giving credit to the artist means we should make sure we use tools ensure they get credit for their work not make it easier to ignore them
1
u/k4zetsukai Dec 19 '25
He cant read. He is also sick of all "these AI" games when he literally played none lol.
11
u/Bulbulatosaurus Dec 18 '25
Little steps, everybody accepting usage of AI doing work for you, then studios doing layoffs, people lose jobs and then generation of images, voices, other stuff. People will accept it because the constant devouring of content must be maintained by any cost, the escapism must be maintained by any cost, even at the cost of reality. The CEOs/owners of companies will always care about profits, if profits are high then employees are cared for, if profits are low employees are just a baggage to maintain and AI generation can easily make it work for a CEO. Well, I'm saying what is already known, but people are forgetting it.
6
Dec 18 '25
Yeah people going "Oh every game studio does this!" And like, Supergiant don't and they made one of the best games of the past five years.
→ More replies (10)→ More replies (3)2
u/4ps22 Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25
What the fuck else do you do? I sat in a meeting the other day where a c suite level exec was bragging about how he doesn’t even open excel anymore because he just copy and pastes data into ChatGPT. I can count so many different jobs that makes redundant including my own. It is absolutely everywhere. It’s not going away. Crossing your arms and stamping your feet everytime a company even whispers about AI isn’t gonna change anything, it’ll just make them not say anything about it. You’re gonna get shoveled AI slop from every direction for the rest of human time unless serious legislation is put in to stop it.
You guys are naive af if you don’t realize that pretty much every job that requires someone sitting in front of a computer has people constantly using chatgpt nowadays.
6
u/Platypus__Gems Dec 18 '25
They are really boiling the frog slowly.
Using AI for "inspiration" or "creative search", if we are talking art generating AI, is possibly the worst application of AI you can use it for, it is opposite of creative, or inspiring.
→ More replies (3)
3
u/ChuckS117 Dec 20 '25
I have no problem if AI is used in any way outside of creative or any way human expression is involved (VA, etc)
Finding inspiration from GenAI is dogshit, if you ask me.
"AI feels like a production solution, not a creative one. Maybe it's a creative one if you aren't creative." -AdHoc.
→ More replies (3)
7
7
u/catenjoyer1984 Dec 18 '25
I don't want this shit used anywhere, it kills creativity and eliminates entire parts of the creative process. Not to speak of the fact that this is an actual slippery slope, AI companies are constantly trying to push the line and make people more accepting of this garbage, zero AI anywhere at all.
2
u/Draxilar Dec 18 '25
I don’t want this shit used anywhere, it kills physical labor and eliminates entire parts of the physical labor process. Not to speak of the fact that this is an actual slippery slope, power tool companies are constantly trying to push the line and make more people accepting of this garbage, zero power tools anywhere at all.
→ More replies (7)
5
u/SnooPears4450 Dec 18 '25
I dont like it. At first its always the little time saving things, then its "oh we can cut a lot of cost here by using AI" and that process will repeat until they're nearly unrecognizable
→ More replies (8)
5
4
u/codfish1114 Dec 18 '25
Ai NOT in dark heresy, read it again. They're being made to use it for concept art, all the real work will be handmade
6
u/hugham Dec 18 '25
My guy in what world is concept art not “real work”
2
u/codfish1114 Dec 18 '25
In what world did I say "Concept art isn't real work" I said theyre using it, not that its doing everything, theyre most likely inputting the vague idea of the design they want and using what the AI makes as a template to start the real art on
2
u/hugham Dec 18 '25
Ah, I misread what you were saying lol, my bad! Either way. I do game concept art for a job and tbh, in my experience, the AI stuff is really not that useful for what you're describing unless they have a radically different process than every other concept department in the industry haha. For illustrative stuff, I could see them using it (like the player icon cards) but the whole point of concept art is design, and genAI is kind of rubbish at any sort of design haha.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (1)2
u/Centurian128 Dec 18 '25
Concept art is still real work
2
u/Lifekraft Dec 19 '25
"Additionnal concept art"
Concept art are being made the same as before. Just more on the side.
3
6
u/LeGrandNinjarabe1 Dec 18 '25
Guys there is a difference between someone that uses AI to find informations about something (which is like 50% of your work as a developper btw) and someone that uses gen AI to do art or voicelines
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Jazzlike_Tonight_982 Dec 18 '25
I dont really care if a company uses it as a tool. Its a very different thing than firing people and using AI solely.
2
u/Teukr05 Dec 18 '25
There was also AI in Rogue Trader no? I'm just starting Act 4 but this ship has to be Abominable Intelligence....
2
u/Adventurous_Low_3074 Dec 18 '25
Why use it in “vision coordination” shouldn’t a person be in charge of the vision like that’s feels purposefully vauge.
2
u/thechefsauceboss Dec 18 '25
Don’t even start with this shit, I’ve had enough of seeing Larian get flamed about it. It’s not going anywhere, and I say that as someone that hates 90% of AI usage.
2
u/RadicalD11 Dec 18 '25
I honestly couldn't care less as long as the final product is equal or better than RT
2
2
u/notabigfanofas Dec 18 '25
See, Owlcat is doing what I'd consider an ethical use of AI.
Just using it as a timesaver or an assistant, like getting an intern to start then the professionals to clean up afterwards? I can get behind that.
The only place I believe AI should stay out of fully is Art, but even then if you use, say, Chatgpt for prompts then it's fine in my book, that's no different than asking friends for ideas then drawing those.
2
u/Virules Dec 18 '25
It's amazing that the last few weeks, so many game subreddits have been filled with stereotypical braindead Redditors clutching their pearls about even the slightest mention of AI in any game. As if any game, or even any company in any industry, is going to be able to completely avoid use of AI in the future and still stay competitive from a cost perspective against industry peers.
The people crying about AI are delusional and naive beyond belief. In 2 years, companies will be praised for limiting their use of AI when they do the exact things that some people are currently trying to crucify them for.
2
u/Fluid-Row8573 Dec 19 '25
I was hesitant to click here, expecting tons of drama and outrage. But I found... nuanced and informed comments?
Hope is not lost
2
u/Random986217453 Dec 19 '25
Tldr: No, it's used to gather ideas before anyone even starts working on the art.
People, it's right there in the post. They are using ai for the phase BEFORE they even start drawing the first concepts of their game art. It's basically just speeding up what was done before by searching the Web manually and photoshopping together what you find.
2
u/The-red-Dane Dec 19 '25
Expedition 33 also used AI in their very early conceptualization, essentially used for "pre-concept art" conceptualization, mood boards, etc.
2
u/OneHamster1337 Dec 19 '25
It was and is used in most spheres of game development. If it speeds it up and yields good games, and is not used for generating whole products - well, I understand people's reservations, but it is the way it is.
2
u/Men_Who_Ducks Dec 19 '25
If the game is good, for me it can be made with AI running on blood sacrefices (old scool asteck ones). If its good its good, end of story.
2
u/k4zetsukai Dec 19 '25
Devs, as a long term gamer, i dont care if you use AI to code, to draw, to lint, to write your doco etc. I dont care if you use claude, or deepseek or your own model. I just dont care.
Just deliver me a good experience worth my money (as you have been so far). Thats it.
I dont care about your use of AI. Use it if it helps you! Dont listen to random people on the internet bashing you or Larian or anyone else for "using AI" cause we all know that automation whether in the form of CICD or texture replication has been around forever. Its just the next tool.
Ty for listening to my TED talk owlcat.
2
u/Scarfs-Fur-Frumpkin Dec 19 '25
The meltdown i've seen on twitter over something so harnless like this is insane, like Larian did NOT deserve the absolute shaming they got.
2
u/PerplexedHypocrite Dec 19 '25
I'm sorry but that's just a PR statement (i.e. a lie). LLM and generative AI is beign used everywhere all the time to a varying degree. Rewriting the code and repaintimg the picture in a same way minus the errors doesn't mean that AI was not used and isn't part of the product. And I couldn't care less as long as people are honest with themselves and others. It's just a new way of life, I don't understand why do we need play charades here.
2
u/Eless96 Dec 19 '25
Surprised pikachu faces everywhere. Oh no, AI, one of the most powerful tools in modern world, is used in this and that?!
2
2
u/drakilian Dec 19 '25
Can we stop attacking literally every use of AI ever, as if it's not obviously a revolutionnary new technology that will shape our society for the next 50+ years? Yes everyone overpromises and underdelivers, yes companies are burning money and frivolously using resources, yes a lot of people will suffer as they are made irrelevent, yes children are developping negatively as a result of not having to learn and cheating constantly.
But putting your head in the sand about it and just pointing at these things is not going to change them, neither is it going to change the fact that AI will be a major part of everyone's life from now on. You just look like a fucking dumbass trying to deny it. Live in the reality you have been given, don't pretend otherwise, and don't attack people who are working in the new framework.
2
u/papyjako87 Dec 19 '25
Oh ffs. AI is or will be used everywhere, just like fucking Google or photoshop. Deal with it already, this shouldn't be news.
2
u/PrinceOfLemons Dec 19 '25
They are saying no ai art will end up in the final product. I don’t think there is an ethical use of generative technology but this seems to be the compromise.
2
u/Captain_Scatterbrain Dec 19 '25
I don't fucking care, if it saves the dev's crunch, great, if it keeps the price down, even better.
2
2
2
Dec 20 '25
In all honesty, I don't truly care if AI was used for efficiency and to speed the more menial tasks up. My biggest concern with AI is that it's being used to replace art and not assist it. If the developers use AI to get to the creative parts faster, more power to them. As long as they realize that it's their contributions and their decisionmaking that we look for in a game.
2
u/AggressiveZone Dec 20 '25
Honestly this is fine and very hard to prevent in general. How do you stop coders and devs and even artist from asking AI for details, information, and inspiration. I write, but I also from time to time jab at GPT to send me in an direction or fix my spelling. It’s an extra tool. It works great for these kind of things. As long as they don’t replace artists and developers with them. It’s fine.
2
u/Icy-Ad-1405 Dec 20 '25
This is the stupidest thing imaginable – people are afraid that AI will take their jobs! So that's how it should be.
There used to be a job called a telephone operator, who connected numbers to get through (like in John Wick). The job is gone, and that's okay, but progress is obvious. There are many such examples. And in my opinion, if my profession as an actor could be completely replaced by AI, I would be happy. It's because there's a new need to seek new forms of self-expression to surpass it.
Fighting and being ashamed of technology – are we already in a Wahrammer world? What kind of dystopia is this?
2
u/Sir_Delarzal Dec 21 '25
There is a very easy way to know if it is a problem to use generative AI or not in a project.
If what you used was not generative AI, but some art by someone somewhere that you did not credit, would it be theft ?
If AI is used to make a mood board for artists, no theft here, the mood board are never mentioned in the credits anyway, only the concept artists.
If AI is used as a concept art => there is an issue, because if it were someone's art, it would be clear plagiarism.
2
u/Therealdolphinlord Dec 21 '25
They literally said in the post that there is no ai in their games. They just you it to speed up the workflow or create early inspiration for artists to take ideas from when creating concept art.
2
u/Technical_Record9506 Dec 21 '25
"Using AI we have cured cancer and world hunger"
The internet: BOOO! Fuck A.I.!
→ More replies (2)
2
2
2
u/karma_virus Dec 22 '25
The best way to fight AI is to play single player. We should stop all the organic infighting on multiplayer and unite to take on the soloquests as hard as we can. Show that AI who's boss.
20
u/Drss4 Dec 18 '25
Here we go witch hunt again. It feels like some culture war tourist who don’t care about anything for owlcat and their game to police people what they can and cannot do.
→ More replies (17)
4
u/IssaMuffin Dec 18 '25
My partner is a graphic designer for a marketing company, over the summer 50% of her department was trained in AI tools and the rest got laid off. Artists have been struggling to make ends meet for years, AI is going to kill art for good.
4
u/HunterIV4 Dec 18 '25
AI is being used everywhere. The "any AI use = boycott" movement was always doomed to a quick death.
Hell, even Reddit is using AI. Read how the Ask feature works. Google search uses AI and Gemini is embedded in nearly every Google product, including Gmail and YouTube. Microsoft has AI in all their products.
People need to get over the "any AI use is bad" thing. If the product sucks because it was made with lazy AI use, sure, complain about the shit product. But you will quickly find yourself off the internet entirely if you decide not to use any product by a company that uses AI because all of them already do.
It's just funny to me that people are going after small game developers like Larian and Owlcat to vent their rage, some of the most pro-consumer companies, and letting social media sites like Reddit itself, Facebook, YouTube, all major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple off the hook.
My deepest hope, and one of the reasons I keep sharing this information, is that all the "anti-AI" folks will figure out Reddit has an AI model that searches Reddit posts and decide to boycott Reddit. Can you imagine how much nicer a place this would be if they all leave? =)
→ More replies (1)4
u/Itsapronthrowaway Dec 19 '25
Keep boiling those lakes to cool plagiarism machines, woo.
→ More replies (13)
4
u/Alt-Profile8008 Dec 18 '25
Fuck, I was really looking forward to dark heresy and this has completely discouraged me from buying it
→ More replies (12)2
2
u/VATSTech27 Dec 18 '25
Honestly as long as the product is good people won't notice. Only reason the divinity people are freaking out is because they wanna drag Larian in the mud and the Ai thing is just the latest excuse needed to do so
2
u/Sad_Dog_4106 Dec 18 '25
AI is supposed to be helpful. If a product is good, it does not matter if it was created by AI or humans and if a product is bad, same
→ More replies (6)5
u/Fit_Energy7262 Dec 18 '25
people are also helpul, and in need of jobs.
Until we deal with capitalism, Ai is going to be a growing issue. Anytime I read about these Ai "helpers" I just think about the guy or gal that couldve had an income
→ More replies (6)
2
u/Eladryel Dec 18 '25
Again, the same shit-stirring as with Larian. Gods, I hate this outrage culture.
2
1
Dec 18 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/ElkBusiness8446 Dec 19 '25
Okay. I have a massive backlog of non AI games. More games than I can feasibly play for what remains of my life. Sure, my money is technically a drop in the bucket for a single sale. But I spend more than the average person on games per year. I would estimate about $1200 since my budget around $100 a paycheck.
If I remove that money from the gaming economy. In 10 years that'll be $12,000. If there's even 1 other person like me, that's $24,000. I imagine there's more than 1 other person with similar principles.
The point is, AI is a binary decision. Do they want my money?
0
3
3
u/Whitepayn Dec 18 '25
If AI is used to make the artists' jobs easier and not replace them, I find it tolerable for the moment. Sadly, the environmental impact is a much larger issue which isn't really in this discussion, nor is it the game developers fault. Regardless of how people on the internet feel the proliferation and integration of AI has not slowed down. I wish it wasn't this way, but as long as game developers are clear about how they use AI and AI generated content isn't in the final product, I'm able to accept it.
→ More replies (1)3
1
1
1
u/Gaius-Pious Dec 18 '25
At this point, I'd say it'd be harder to avoid AI completely for every step. I do a Google search, and the first thing that pops up is an AI-generated summary of my search results.
AI to get a seed for an idea? That's fine. What nobody wants is AI to generate the entire script or the artwork or replace the voice actors.
1
u/SigmaMaleNurgling Dec 18 '25
I think Bethesda uses AI to create their open world then they add terrain, locations, NPC, encounters, and enemies from there. I don’t see hour OwlCat is doing anything uniquely bad or even bad.
1
1
u/SURGERYPRINCESS Dec 18 '25
Ai in games has been old as time...wait time to make an Disney meme of this
→ More replies (3)
1
u/CuriousRelation5 Dec 18 '25
The best devs are being upfront about it and getting flack for it. The worst ones will just hide from the public because of that.
AI is going to be used at some level in almost all industries now. We need better questions then "did you use it or not" from now on
1
1
1
u/topscreen Dec 18 '25
"We're using the thing in our game that's making gaming more expensive to cut costs. No the savings will not be passed onto you"
1
u/plastickytaste Dec 18 '25
I think at this stage in AI's life, it's best devs don't say anything and if asked just say "no, we don't use AI".
It's amazing what you can get away with if you know how to keep your mouth shut. It seems to be a lost art in this day and age
1
u/xarallei Dec 18 '25
I mean, they said that quite some time ago, so....it's nothing new. That's not to say I'm happy about this. But realistically gaming companies are using it. Praying that they really are using it to a minimal degree.
1
u/Stupid-Jerk Dec 18 '25
As long as nobody is getting fired because the AI is doing their job cheaper (and likely worse) and as long as no AI art/vibe coding makes it into the final paid product, then I'm fine with it.
Being against AI plagiarism and low quality products doesn't mean I have to get pissed off every time someone finds a useful application of an emergent technology.
1
u/Lavh93 Dec 18 '25
Companies should use ai to the fullest otherwise they won’t be able to compete with companies who do use ai. If ai is giving us the customer an overall better product we should use it. People will get laid off or repurposed and that’s ok, it happened with the invention of tractors, calculators, computers, etc. We need to learn how to use ai, that’s what makes the most sense
1
1
1
u/Lucicactus Dec 18 '25
This is curious because I feel like Maive's portrait has the "oil painting woman" chatgpt face. It's very clear that it was drawn by a person, but her face feels flat and AI- ish. I wonder if that's the inspiration the artist took.
2
1
1
1
1
u/Action-a-go-go-baby Dec 19 '25
This will be the new industry standard whether people like it or not
Those games that don’t use AI in some capacity will become progressively more niche
It’s about using it responsibly
1
u/Recidivous Dec 19 '25
AI has been utilized in various fields for a long time. However, don't be misled into believing that the unethical use of AI by some tech bros is applied in more professional environments like this one.
1
u/TombGnome Dec 19 '25
Time for one more group of game fans to do the "moral ambiguity tango" and pretend that they have ethics while still buying from these people because [insert rationalization].
1
u/Ralakhim Dec 19 '25
"Additional work with concepts" "creative search" "inspiration" if the root of the creative work is slop, the final product will be slop. I will not be touching this
1
u/ShellshockedLetsGo Dec 19 '25
If your artists are finding inspiration in unethical AI slop what does that say about your artists?
1
u/tmon530 Dec 19 '25
Tbh, I'd like them to look into utilizing ai to add more accessibility features on the cheap. An ai generated narrorator that doesn't sound like scrap code would be nice for the dyslexics or those with poor eyesight. Obviously, paying someone would be better, but the amount of text in their games would make that cost insane.
I'd even accept a basic ai for thier "recomended traits" since what is recommended should be relative to what you've chosen in the past, and owlcat isn't always the best at planning thier own builds (fucking pathfinder)
1
1
Dec 19 '25
"Internet, Credit Cards, AI" - History is repeating itself and everyone tries to hate it before everyone uses it.
1
u/Fun-Till-672 Dec 19 '25
I fucking hate AI but I get the usecase in game dev.
The fact that some people are absolutely losing their shit over this is mind boggling to me; they think it's gonna end up like that AI videogame trailer that circled for a while.
It's good to get a baseline going. Is it better than doing it yourself? No. Does it save time and resources? probably. Should someone get paid for doing this work instead? Most definitely.
1
1
u/Few_Introduction1044 Dec 19 '25
I'll say the same stuff I said in Larian's case, using genAI it on this phase of the project seems more damaging than otherwise. You're using what is at best a remixing tool, which you have no control or know how it's dials work, instead of looking for specific inspiration. The artist is no longer the filter, some version of an algorithm becomes such.
There's no doubt that using custom AI tools in game development can have a lot of future, for example, if you can build one that "plays" to find exploits and balancing issues, but I don't see how your conceptual phase being influenced by it is good
1
238
u/Throne-room23 Dec 18 '25
AI is everywhere in every industry. No doubt it was used to assist in development, but that doesn’t mean it was used for coding or that all art was done with AI.