Larian CEO Swen Vincke has confirmed the studio's use of AI in regard to the development of Divinity.
Generative AI in games is obviously a hot-button topic. While some fully AI-generated games shown off are embarrassingly bad, many developers have taken to using it as only part of their development process. Notably, the massively popular Arc Raiders and the not-so-popular Black Ops 7 have both faced backlash over AI usage, while Running With Scissors cancelled a new Postal spinoff following backlash over alleged AI use. Meanwhile, some, like Hideo Kojima, have spoken about using AI as a tool to boost efficiency while keeping the slop machine away from any of a game's creative aspects.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Swen Vincke spoke about his wish to get Divinity out quicker than the six years it took Baldur's Gate 3 to release. He stresses the importance of creatives, saying, "The creative process itself actually is something you cannot accelerate," and adding that Divinity will not include generative AI content at release: "Everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves."
However, the studio has been using AI tools to create placeholder text, develop concept art, and for other tasks during development. While the use of Gen AI has had some pushback at the studio, Vincke notes that "I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it."
Of course, with a game as big as Divinity, this also means the team will have to be on the lookout if it wants to make sure it ships with no Gen AI content, as even the likes of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had some slip through the cracks before they were swiftly patched out.
Notably, Baldur's Gate 3 leads Jennifer English and Neil Newbon have both been outspoken about the use of AI-generated content for the creative aspects of development, with English saying, "I get it that AI is a tool. I get it, but not to replace creativity." While Newbon notes the fact that AI voices "sound crap," and argues it would be just as cheap to actually pay actors for small roles, like Larian did for one Jennifer English back in Divinity: Original Sin 2.
