Capcom isn't using generative AI to make any of the assets you see in Resident Evil Requiem or Monster Hunter Stories 3, for example, because the developers behind some of this year's very best games are simply better.
In an interview with 4Gamer, with quotes translated by Automaton, Capcom executive Shinichi Inoue, who serves as the company's vice president of game development platform and AI solutions, says the publisher isn't using the controversial tech for asset generation and has no plans to do so. The reason is pretty simple: Gen AI can't stand up next to the stuff Capcom's devs make.
"What we in the entertainment industry consider extremely important in contrast to artificial intelligence is human sensibility," Inoue says. "Even top-tier AI still cannot match our creators when it comes to sensibility. That's the current reality. Because of that, concentrating human effort on work requiring this kind of sensibility is more efficient from the standpoint of human capital management, and it's also important for coexistence with creators."
Capcom is embracing the tech in other areas, though, specifically when it comes to communication-related tasks and debugging. The publisher is apparently cutting down on this "routine work" with a playtesting system driven by Google Gemini and in-house AI that "reports its findings to debugging check agents, but rather than leaving everything to humans, another agent first evaluates the reports against the game director's concept."
"A huge volume of this checking and evaluation work is carried out while humans are asleep," Inoue adds. "After that, the system screens for issues that are highly likely to be 'incorrect when compared to the game's intended concept' and presents them."
As Automaton notes, just last year the publisher toyed around with the idea of using generative AI to make the hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of assets required for blockbuster games nowadays – your in-game TVs and trees and chairs and sinks and so on. But it seems, somewhere in that last year, Capcom's had a change of heart.
Just recently, the company stated that "we are currently testing out various methods" of AI usage "across our departments, including graphics, sound, and programming," but affirmed that "our company will not be implementing any AI-generated assets into our video game content."
