The Creators of Baldur's Gate 3 Details Its Application of AI Tools for Upcoming Project
The developer behind acclaimed titles like Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin just unveiled its upcoming project, creating immense hype within the gaming community. However, follow-up statements from the company's co-founder have added nuance to the narrative, touching on the studio's stance toward AI tools.
AI as a Creative Assistant, Not a Substitute
In a recent clarification, Larian's director outlined that the developer is using generative AI for specific preliminary tasks. These include developing PowerPoint slides, generating initial concept art, and drafting draft dialogue.
Importantly, Vincke stressed that the end assets in the game will be created entirely by real artists. "We are writing all the content manually," he stated.
We are constantly growing our pool of writers and are actively forming narrative groups.
As visual development is being particularly referenced — we currently have twenty-three visual developers and have roles to fill for further creatives.
All our efforts we do is additive and focused on having people spend more time on the creative process.
Any ML tool applied correctly is additive to a artist's routine, not a substitute for their skill.
Tempering Reactions with Clear Intent
The admission of using AI initially generated backlash among a segment of the player base. In reaction, Vincke issued more elaboration on public forums.
"At Larian, we employ these tools to gather inspiration, just like we use the internet and reference books," he explained. "In the initial ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for layout which we then swap out with hand-crafted concept art."
He continued, "Our studio recruits creatives for their creative vision, not for their capacity to replicate what a AI generates."
Three Pillars of Practical Application
Vincke had earlier broken down the team's focused method to AI and ML, categorizing its use into three main functions:
- Streamlining Repetitive Work: This encompasses motion capture cleaning, audio processing, and pipeline-specific tasks like adapting animations for different models.
- Rapid Prototyping ('White Boxing'): Using technology to quickly build simple mock-ups of scenarios to experiment with concepts prior to expensive production.
- Experimental Frontiers: Investigating how machine learning could eventually create new forms of reactivity, specifically in managing player-driven narratives in a vast role-playing world.
He specifically affirmed that key artistic areas — like music composition — are are in no way departments where the company is replacing human input. Conversely, Larian is actively hiring in these exact roles.
"Our studio is not shipping a game with AI-generated content, and we are certainly not looking at trimming down staff to swap them out with artificial intelligence," Vincke stated definitively.
