Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi says the emerging trend of AI in game development is currently "not something that I could really go ahead with" on a personal level. That, and, as much as AI "might try and intrude and take part in the creative side of things," he'd like to think his team can "do better than AI," anyway.
As part of a wide-ranging interview with GamesRadar+ that we'll publish more of in the coming days and beyond, we spoke to Hamaguchi about the current state of the industry alongside the Final Fantasy 7 Remake project. As part of that, I asked for his thoughts on the current conversations swirling around the use of AI in game development and whether his team is using it.
To start, Hamaguchi makes it clear that Square Enix currently has no "set-down policies or rules" on AI – whether it should be used, how it should be used, and so on. Giving his own take on the chatter, though, he says that "the use of AI on the creative side of game development, certainly at the moment, is not something that I could really go ahead with."
The other side of AI we've seen in the discourse is how it might take away some of the tedium of game development, so the creatives can focus on being creatives. Just last week, Hideo Kojima said he thinks "of AI as more of a friend," but one he'd only let "handle the tedious tasks" of development "that would lower cost and cut down on time." For Hamaguchi, adopting a more efficient approach to game development is undoubtedly an important topic to keep tabs on, though it is also "a bigger topic than AI" alone.
"The idea that game creation is a very complicated business is a lot of different working moving parts and things to be aware of, certainly in terms of the money-making side of it, assigning staff, and managing teams," he says through a translator. "Obviously, these things we need to think of solutions for and be aware of."
To conclude, Hamaguchi doesn't rule out that AI could assist creatives in gathering resources and finding references. But that'd be where it would stop for his team at the moment.
"I would like to think, as a creator and as part of my creative team, that however much AI might try and intrude and take part in the creative side of things, as humans, as my team, we would want to be good enough creators that we can could do better than AI, and we're definitely going to push that. That's the approach I want to take."
