Larian’s CEO says the studio isn’t ‘trimming down teams to replace them with AI’

The CEO of Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian has inadvertently stirred up some controversy over the use of AI in the developer’s next game. Based on an interview with Larian CEO Swen Vincke, Bloomberg reported that the studio uses AI tools for things like developing concept art and writing placeholder text. But following some initial backlash, Vincke later clarified to IGN that the studio is “neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI” and published his own statement on X.

Larian announced Divinity last week at The Game Awards with a “cinematic” teaser trailer that didn’t reveal much about the game itself. Here’s what Bloomberg reported about Larian’s use of AI in Divinity:

Under Vincke, Larian has been pushing hard on generative AI, although the CEO says the technology hasn’t led to big gains in efficiency. He says there won’t be any AI-generated content in Divinity — “everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves” — but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text.

The use of generative AI has led to some pushback at Larian, “but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it,” Vincke said.

Vincke’s AI comments have received some pushback, including former Larian employee Selena Tobin saying on Bluesky “consider my feedback: i loved working at @larianstudios.com until AI.” A few hours after Bloomberg’s report, IGN published the following statement from Vincke, which Larian has also shared with The Verge:

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.

Vincke also posted a statement on X:

Holy fuck guys we’re not “pushing hard” for or replacing concept artists with AI.

We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.

I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. 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.

We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use 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. There is no comparison.

I talked about how we use ML here if you would like to know more: https://gamespot.com/articles/baldurs-gate-3-dev-embraces-machine-learning-for-tasks-that-nobody-wants-to-do/1100-6531123/

We’ve hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier.

Vincke’s stance seems less supportive of AI than positions taken by other big gaming companies, including Krafton’s move to becoming “AI First” and Nexon’s CEO saying that “it’s important to assume that every game company is now using AI.” Some indie developers, on the other hand, are promoting the fact that they’re “AI free.”