The Divinity Developer Details Its Use of Generative AI for Upcoming Divinity Game
The team behind popular role-playing games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin just teased its upcoming project, sparking a wave of excitement within the player base. However, recent statements from the studio's lead designer have brought nuance to the discussion, addressing the studio's philosophy toward machine learning.
AI as a Creative Assistant, Not a Substitute
In a recent message, Swen Vincke detailed that the team is utilizing generative AI for particular preliminary purposes. These involve fleshing out pitch decks, producing early-stage concept art, and writing placeholder text.
Crucially, Vincke made clear that the end assets in the game will be authored exclusively by human creatives. "Our team is developing all the content manually," he affirmed.
We are continuously expanding our roster of writers and are actively putting together narrative groups.
As concept art is being explicitly referenced — we right now have over twenty concept artists and have job openings for further talent.
All our efforts we do is incremental and focused on enabling creatives to spend additional energy on actual creation.
Every AI system applied correctly is supplementary to a artist's workflow, not a substitute for their talent.
Tempering Reactions with Clear Intent
The admission of employing this technology originally provoked unease among portions of the player base. In reaction, Vincke offered further elaboration on public forums.
"At Larian, we employ these tools to explore references, in the same way we use search engines and art books," he explained. "In the very early brainstorming phase we use it as a rough outline for structure which we then substitute with hand-crafted artwork."
He continued, "Our studio recruits talent for their creative vision, not for their willingness to replicate what a AI generates."
Focused Uses for Machine Learning
Vincke had in the past broken down the company's targeted method to machine learning, defining its use into key pillars:
- Handling Monotonous Jobs: This encompasses motion capture cleaning, dialogue cleanup, and Larian-specific work like retargeting animations.
- Rapid Prototyping ('White Boxing'): Using tools to speedily create simple versions of scenarios to validate concepts prior to complete development.
- Long-Term Aspirations: Exploring how machine learning could in the future facilitate new forms of player agency, particularly in creating player-driven narratives in a vast role-playing world.
He specifically stated that key artistic areas — including music composition — are are absolutely not departments where the team is cutting human talent. Conversely, Larian is recruiting more in these very positions.
"We are not launching a game with machine-made assets, nor looking at reducing creatives to replace them with AI," Vincke summarized.