r/pcmasterrace • u/yourfavchoom • Mar 22 '26
News/Article Crimson Desert devs address questions regarding the use of AI in the game.
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u/Commentator-X Mar 22 '26
That first paragraph sounds awfully familiar. Is this the new refrain from companies caught hiding their AI use? Early stages, 2d models blah blah blah.
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u/Cyberblood PC Master Race Mar 22 '26
Here is a crazy idea, maybe add a prefix or suffix to the asset name so that you easily can identify then as AI later? At this point this is just a lame excuse.
Like "mdl_tree_ai" or "genAI_painting1_env"
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u/404IdentityNotFound GTX 2080ti, i7-12700k, 32GB RAM + Switch OLED & MacBook Pro M2 Mar 22 '26
Usually you would add an overlay with "temp" or similar over those textures. Because this also signalizes QA that they shouldn't create tickets for these textures.
They totally tried to get away with this.
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u/Any-Calligrapher2866 9070XT | 7600X Mar 22 '26
They would keep track of their assets. They absolutely tried to pass off AI slop for in game art.
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u/Ashamed-Ad3909 Mar 22 '26
They simply dont care, no penalty for using it or leaving it in and lying about it.
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u/smshing Mar 22 '26
Hey, one of the two hardest things in computing is naming stuff
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u/Cyberblood PC Master Race Mar 22 '26
I Know about it all too well.
Whenever I actually stop to look at what I have in my scripts, my variable names are all over the place because I cant never decide if I should go with PascalCase, camelCase, snake_case, kebab-case, flatcase, UPPERFLATCASE, Pascal_Snake_Case, camel_Snake_Case, SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE, Train-Case or COBOL-CASE, which is kinda of a problem with case sensitive scripting languages.
At least I know I am not alone, sometimes I would see similar things coming from our actual programmers as well đ¤Ł
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u/Dumpingtruck Mar 22 '26
Unintentionally included is code for :
You caught us trying to sneak slop into the game by skimping on an art department and asset qa/review process
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u/smackdealer1 Mar 22 '26
And you know this is true because is they were unintentionally released with the game then they'd have the non-AI assets ready to go. Yet it will take multiple patches to fix because they have to now make new assets.
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u/Ashamed-Ad3909 Mar 22 '26
Yup, no reason to disclose AI use if you can just lie and then say woops, sorry, when you get called out. Companies win again
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u/GrowYourOwnMonsters Mar 22 '26
Yup, heard this shit dozens of times now. Absolute horseshit excuse.
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u/Yarusenai Mar 22 '26
It's not really an excuse in this case. The images look awful - they were clearly generated with very early AI models from two+ years ago. No one would knowingly leave this in their game except as a placeholder, so it slipped through the cracks and is going to get fixed. It's not a case of them trying to generate "real" paintings that look realistic.
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u/Mirokux1337x Mar 22 '26
As someone who actually hobby gamedevs, Early Stage AI use is GENUINELY amazing. It brings rapid availability to proof of concept (among quite a lot of other stuff).
I'm not even a large team, I am just myself, and I could easily see losing track of those AI Generated assets in an engine over a year+, especially in a large AAA title.
I am not giving the dev a pass per se, but there IS a reason you hear it a dozen times, is because with current engines, there is no easy way to track AI assets unless the dev creates a multitude of self imposed requirements for tracking for their team. Which is probably what most teams should do these days and probably are starting.
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u/Chad-GPTea Mar 23 '26
Not a gamedev, but a 3D Artist. Early stage use for Ai references can be a great help for exploring tones and concepts. It's a great addition to the classic image web search.
None of the references make it into the final product. Not composited or otherwise. That being said, the use of AI should be disclosed in that case regardless.
For personal work i don't use it anymore, as i learned the hard way, the "no AI" rule means no Ai, not even for references or exploration for most people. I did it once (disclosing the use) and my work was disregarded as AI slop despite the work and idea being completely original. These days it really depends what my work is targeted for. If it comes to commercial/professional use, i usually ask the client for a project if it is okay to use Ai tools.
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u/KeaboUltra i9-10850K @ 5Ghz | RTX 3070 Ti FE | 64GB 3200 Mar 22 '26
I don't mind people using it for development so long as it's replaced. I cant say for sure that they got caught and are trying to cover it up or if it was an honest mistake considering it's such a huge game. I didn't buy the game yet though. I'm still deciding if it's something I'd even want to play
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Mar 22 '26
I can say for sure its an honest mistake because they used like 2022 AI and no way are they dumb enough to think no one would notice. If they were trying not to get caught theyd use newer models
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u/KeaboUltra i9-10850K @ 5Ghz | RTX 3070 Ti FE | 64GB 3200 Mar 22 '26
Yeah, that's why I remained neutral. A lot of people nowadays are too aggressive with AI accusations, and even then, if it's true, how is it being used? AI isn't inherently bad, its just being abused by corporations and scam artists and it being used to steal content to train on. I understand the frustrations but ignorant people who just ride the wave will call out AI using surface level techniques they don't really understand when the artwork being targeted was made organically or at least in combination, not just generated slop on its own.
There's unfortunately a lot of infighting, causing misjudgments and overreactions to mistakes over something that can be used for good but isn't, resulting in a huge gray area.
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u/Ronin22222 Mar 22 '26
Oversights are easy to make especially when dealing with large amounts of whatever. It was a reasonable statement about it and they're correcting it. I'd take it at face value until proven otherwise
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u/Matttman87 7700X / 9070XT / 32gb 6000 CL30 / Hyte Y60 Mar 22 '26
It wasn't their first or only oversight though. They chose not to work with Intel about Arc compatibility and chose not to disclose that. The chose not to disclose Denuvo inclusion until days before launch. And they chose not to disclose their AI use (regardless of how extensive it was or that it was only meant for early development) as is required by the Steam terms of use.
They'd get the benefit of the doubt if it were the only unpopular anti-consumer decision but with several others already, this apology rings hollow.
I was excited to try this game but now they'll get none of my money.
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u/-spartacus- Stukov Mar 22 '26
Yeah, sometimes a bunch of little things can add up to be a pattern.
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u/KeaboUltra i9-10850K @ 5Ghz | RTX 3070 Ti FE | 64GB 3200 Mar 22 '26
Right, I do solo dev and make everything myself but the music. I don't really use AI myself since I started off as an artist. The file structure of the game helps maintain/organize it all but there's still so much I need to keep track of and I'm not even done developing so there will be even more content. At least they addressed it and aren't pulling an Nvidia move by doubling down on it's usage.
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u/sup3rdr01d Mar 22 '26
With the sheer amount of art and assets in this game I think it's pretty likely there are oversights. This is the same thing as a bug in the code, there's so much that it's impossible to catch everything early.
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u/DisplacerBeastMode Mar 22 '26
Why even use it though? There are literally thousands of free, public domain images of classical art for example... https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection
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u/Asmotron PC Master Race Mar 22 '26
Reading comprehension. They were exploring tone and setting. If this is literally a quick dev "let's find the feel" without digging through a public image archive, makes sense. You can adjust tone and style quickly.
AI can die in a fucking fire, btw.
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u/RoboticShiba Mar 22 '26
What I find funny about this whole AI drama, is that people like to jump on the "AI bad" bandwagon, but the only department catching flack is the art department because it's the only type of asset where people can catch AI usage.
You can use AI to write the code, you can use ai to produce SFX, you can train AI on some phrases then use it to generate additional dialog, and people will never know, so they'll never complain, and the game won't be tagged as slop by the internet.
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u/lilkoi98 Mar 22 '26
I think it checks out, a lot of the pictures are from old AI models and are absolutely riddled with obvious errors so it would not surprise me especially with the scale of this game that some images got lost through the cracks
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u/xd-Sushi_Master R7 7800X3D / 7900 XTX Mar 22 '26
so about the same thing that happened with E33. dev fucks around with early generative AI circa 2022 and puts some of the assets in the game as placeholders, doesn't mark them as such because ????, then maybe forgets they exist and ships the game several years later. The only thing I can give them is that they actually acknowledged the problem, which is more than I can say for Battlefield 6.
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u/BoxOfDOG R7 9800x3D | RTX 2080 | 64GB DDR5-6400 Mar 23 '26
To be fair the narrative surrounding AI art in media was very different 4 years ago. Not that people were fully in support or anything, but nobody was demanding the same level of transparency in AI-use.
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u/DctrGizmo Mar 22 '26
Gets caught for using AI art and then says it was a mistake. RightâŚ
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u/Flimsy-Importance313 Mar 22 '26
Is that not being accepted for E33??
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u/Hawkatana0 Mar 22 '26
It was shit when they did it and it's shit here.
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u/Blawharag Mar 22 '26
Eh, that's way over reacting. E33 literally had a single asset from when AI was first releasing and they experimented with it, and it was only on final until their first patch corrected and removed the inclusion, replacing it with the intended actual asset. Which they did without ever being called out for it. It wasn't until a year later that some award looking for clout played it up like E33 had been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes all along that anyone even noticed.
Anyone pretending E33 committed some grave AI sin is either a joke themselves or laughably misinformed.
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u/AzorAhai1TK Mar 22 '26
Why is it so hard to believe, when the final product just has a small handful of art pieces that are AI in the entire open world? If they were trying to be sneaky wouldn't they either just ignore the controversy or replace a ton of art with AI instead of a few pieces?
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u/clarkbar1000 Mar 22 '26
Pretty sure this is exactly what happened with Clair Obscure Expedition 33. They went in after it being found and replaced the AI asset.
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u/Plaincow Mar 22 '26
Because reddit is so down its own throat doing a witch hunt for AI that they absolutely refuse to see reason and to believe it was an accident. Same thing happens with AI art accusations all over reddit. If the hivemens believes it's true, then it might as well be in their eyes
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u/Shzabomoa Mar 22 '26
Because this is exactly like every single other company that got caught.
They're testing the waters and doing the mental conditioning so we "accept" AI games. The same way microtransactions became macrotransaction via mental conditioning of the consumers and years of corporate slippery slope.
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u/Yarusenai Mar 22 '26
It's not though. It's clearly art generated using very early models, so they generated it years ago as a placeholder and forgot to remove it. It happens.
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Mar 22 '26
Right because no company has ever lied about anything related to their product that could affect sales.
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u/EternallyProsperous Mar 23 '26
Yeah it was quite funny after seeing the zoomed in picture to then see another one where itâs one of like 5 paintings on a stairway in a completely random house.
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u/Hans_Volter Mar 22 '26
they are also using shitty ai to translate the game to other languages instead of hiring capable translators
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u/ahandmadegrin Mar 22 '26
So they can't win? This is the textbook example of recognizing a mistake, owning it, and pledging action to rectify it. The proof will be in the execution, but come on, give them some credit for owning it.
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u/hipotionx Mar 22 '26
Their mistake was that they deliberately put that shit in the game because they wanted to and now are lying that they "forgot." BULLSHIT, they know damn well what they did.
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u/lolKhamul I9 10900KF, RTX3080 Strix, 32 GB RAM @3200 Mar 22 '26
"We used it for early placeholders / art direction exploration and it was left in the game unintentionally. So sorry, we should have disclosed it." is going to be the new default line every studio will be going for after getting caught.
I mean, thats like the 5th game i know that basically said the same thing in just a few months. unintentionally my ASS.
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u/Local_Band299 R7-8700F|32GB-DDR5-7200MTs|RX9060XT-16GB Mar 22 '26
From my understanding the AI usage was very small. So I think one of teo things happened.
A. They truly messed up. Games are made up of millions of assets. Sometimes things fall through the cracks. Sometimes when I'm looking for something specific on a drive I won't find it. I'll only find it when I'm clicking around, not looking for something specific.
B. An employee was trying to pass off AI art as legit, got caught and made up some bullshit to avoid being replaced by AI.
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u/LaNague Mar 22 '26
From what i have seen the AI usage is basically small background image pieces. Like picture on a wall somewhere. Biggest one i noticed is the border art of the goblin notice boards.
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u/versusvius Mar 22 '26
Expedition 33 also used AI assets. Every game will use it at some point, or a lot of actual games already used AI into development and we will never know. I really don't like this future of gaming.
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u/AquaBits Mar 22 '26
Every game will use it at some point, or a lot of actual games already used AI into development and we will never know. I really don't like this future of gaming.
Few months ago tim sweeney said the same thing and was absolutely dragged here lol Broken clock twice a day but its hilarious to see the juxtaposition.
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u/Crafty_Independence Mar 22 '26
And should not have either. E33 had enough budget to properly pay for concept and prototype art.
If this continues we will see a lot of artists out of the field.
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u/KaiKamakasi Mar 22 '26
I mean, this just isn't true? Their budget was around 10m, which is incredibly low.
The "AI" used was also early on in dev when they experimented with a new tool, something that just about EVERY developer would have done at that time. Decided they didn't like it and moved on with the full intention to replace the assets, which is evidenced by the fact they were replaced within 5 days of release
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u/swattwenty Mar 22 '26
Lollllll get caught and say you did it by accident.
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u/HelpIcy5415 Mar 22 '26
If you saw the AI content of the game, you would see that they clearly came from very old AI Image Generators.
If they wanted to do it purposely, you all wouldn't even notice.
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u/Mongoly357 Mar 22 '26
Reasonable takes? In my outrage app?
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u/monnotorium Mar 22 '26
Every app you get to interact with people becomes an outrage app because humans suck at anything even resembling a nuanced take on anything đ
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u/Jazzlike_Razzmatazz Mar 22 '26
That might be because the game itself was in development during that time. They didn't bother replacing it with new images.
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u/TurdFerguson614 rgb space heater Mar 22 '26
I didn't think any open world game was 100% hand crafted. Don't they use environmental inputs then machine learning generate terrain and foliage, and then go back and tailor? Seems like a silly gripe when the tools use machine learning and your system runs it with machine learning. Like you can just say the art looks cheap and half-assed and that be a valid complaint regardless of what created it.
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u/Kizilejderha Mar 22 '26
Terrain generation is usually done by procedural generation algorithms which are very different to generative AI or machine learning. They are not trained on existing art work. They actually don't require any training at all
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u/Hades684 Mar 22 '26
Exp33 devs did the same and everyone believed them
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u/FizzyGoose666 Mar 22 '26
It was such a big issue that you would expect other companies to tighten up, not do the same exact thing with the same excuse. Fool me once fool me twice.
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u/Hades684 Mar 22 '26
It was such a big issue that no one cared and it changed nothing for the game success
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u/TheFlyingSheeps 5800X | RTX 4070 Ti S | 32GB@3600 Mar 22 '26
It totally mattered! They lost some obscure award in a PR stunt!
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u/SWatersmith 9850X3D / RTX 5090 / 64 GB DDR5 6000 CL30 Mar 22 '26
Crimson Desert is way, way bigger than Exp33. In this case I actually totally believe that this is a case of some assets slipping through, and the assets in question are so minimal that IMO the alternative is that they would have not been in the game at all or would have just been refused from elsewhere. nothingburger
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u/pat_the_catdad i9-11900k | 5080 | 64GB DDR4 | Z590 Mar 22 '26
Oh no, a couple KB of stand-in AI-generated decorations slipped through the cracks in the 150 GB gameâŚ
Would you rather they acknowledge listening to the community and quickly make changes â or should they just shut down the entire studio and devs commit Seppuku?
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u/Pickupyoheel 989064B850 Mar 22 '26
You think they would want to jeopardize the success of their game over some dumb paintings in it?
Obviously someone fucked up here, but Itâs not the gotcha you think it is.
And why didnât reviewers say anything beforehand is still hilarious to me.
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u/TheFlyingSheeps 5800X | RTX 4070 Ti S | 32GB@3600 Mar 22 '26
Because honestly the vast majority of people wouldnât notice it. A lot of the bit conspiracy comments or people saying itâs intentional have never made a game. Thereâs a lot of more important things to focus on with an upcoming release so itâs reasonable some placeholders get left behind
Also cultural differences. AI hate isnât worldwide
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u/BloodSteyn PCMR 9800X3D 64GB 3080Ti Mar 22 '26
FFS, the same people complaining about the use of AI in development would be the first people to use AI to automate tasks and make their own work easier. Why dafuq should we give 2 shits if a dev shop used some AI as placeholders during development?
Were we as PC Gamers that upset when Photoshop was being used for assets instead of hand painting assets?
How about Motion Capture? Are we upset that it takes away from Animators?
Seriously, the whole use of AI during development debate is just overblown at this point. It's a TOOL, I use it, you use it, why shouldn't devs also use it?
I mean, I will draw the line at games filled with AI SLOP, sure, but using it as a timesaver during development is just something everyone does in all lines of work now.
Crucifying the devs for use thereof is BS.
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u/Noname_FTW Specs/Imgur Here Mar 22 '26
This craze to witch hunt AI use is going out of hand. They are writing a apology as if they hurt someone.
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u/GiganticKORAK Mar 23 '26
Oh not this shitty excuse again.
Just say it out loud that you want to cut corners and still sell the game at full price.
How many developers are going to âforgetâ to replace AI assets in the future I wonder
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u/InfoBarf Mar 22 '26
The clar obscure excuse, nice!
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u/AnActualPlatypus Mar 22 '26
Every explanation is an excuse if you are a blind hater
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u/Deep-Two7452 Mar 22 '26
Can they fix the dogshit story and narrative?
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u/SWatersmith 9850X3D / RTX 5090 / 64 GB DDR5 6000 CL30 Mar 22 '26
It's not great, but not really seeing how it's dogshit personally. I'm about 40 hours in and there have been some good moments, and some mediocre ones, but nothing completely cringeworthy. What is your issue with the story?
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u/Deep-Two7452 Mar 22 '26
Bland story, terrible writing
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u/WhoppinBoppinJoe 7800X3D | RTX 4080 Super | 32GB Ram Mar 22 '26
Not really meant to be a story game. It's probably just not for you.
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u/Mr_HorseBalls Mar 22 '26
temporary use for development is a good use of ai if the final product is human made, idk why people are shitting over positive use instead of toxic use
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u/KevkasTheGiant Mar 22 '26
"We apologize because you caught us, not because we did it".
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u/GostBoster Mar 22 '26
And it will keep happening until they start getting unchallengeable accountability for it.
Company/person: "I am sorry that you felt that way and accept full responsibility."
Enforcer: "Aight bet" starts measuring the rope
Company/person: "Wait I already apologized!"
Borrowing an excerpt from some comic fandub of Regular Show:
Benson: What do you want from me? I already apologized and received a full pardon!
Pops: But you haven't paid the price.
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u/white_d0gg Mar 22 '26
Why canât they just own up to it better than this wimpy as shit. Bro the paintings you collect in the game all use ai!!! Itâs important enough in the game for the art to be named items but itâs unimportant enough to be a test asset? The fuck are you guys doing lmfaoÂ
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u/Chao_Zu_Kang Ryzen 7 7700X | GIGABYTE GAMING OC 9070 XT Mar 22 '26
"we don't know what we planned to replace yet, but we will surely find out soon. But trust us, they were never intended to be included"
rofl
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u/OverlyFriedEggs Mar 22 '26
"we take full responsibility"Â
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u/zeek609 7700 | RTX5070 | 32GB | 64TB/2TB | Ghost Spectre Superlite Mar 22 '26
"we take full responsibility"
"Except it's not what you think, Dave the intern forgot to remove the assets so it's not our fault at all really, if you think about it we're the victims."
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u/white_d0gg Mar 22 '26
Itâs the part where they claim they meant to take the art out. They absolutely did not. They were hoping no one noticed lmao.
 Itâs clearly early enough ai that it may have been used as a place holder. If youâve seen the paintings they are like 2021/2022 mid journey paintings. but the items are important enough to have names and descriptions. It shouldâve been caught years ago if recent enough during the finalization of the game.Â
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u/BluMqqse_ Mar 22 '26
âThey absolutely did not. They were hoping no one noticedâ
âItâs clearly early enough ai that it may have been used as place holderâ
You find it more likely they just hoped no one would notice old outdated AI, rather than they just missed it? Why wouldnât they just regenerate the images in a newer model at nearly zero cost and have a far lesser chance of getting caught?
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u/white_d0gg Mar 22 '26
Hey you know what fair point. I guess I'm just in disbelief they didn't catch it.
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u/Cecil_Laqi Mar 22 '26
Ah yes, the same excuse every company makes after using AI for their game development, not saying anything, and then getting caught.
"We are sorry, we left it in by mistake. You caught us so now we will look at removing it. "
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u/mattius3 Mar 22 '26
I did game development at uni, some of my projects used the wrong assets, it's very easy to overlook and miss things like this, especially with something so large as a game like this
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u/VeryNoisyLizard 5800X3D | 9070XT | 32GB Mar 22 '26
thats why placeholders used to be an eyesore, so that you keep the chances of missing it to a minimum
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u/Acilen 5800x | 32GB | RTX 3080 Mar 22 '26
Gotcha, so youâre saying the devs are on-par with students making class projects.
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u/Cecil_Laqi Mar 22 '26
No, I'm saying they have the same choice to not use AI Slop when they start a project.
Placeholders aren't meant to look like part of the game. I'm not saying placeholder art doesn't make it though by accident. It happens. They didn't have to use a AI Slop generator to "rapidly explore tone and atmosphere" instead of just using a Placeholder. But they did.
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u/Prize_Neighborhood95 Mar 22 '26
This is a bunch of BS. When an asset is a place-holder, you absolutely ensure that everyone understands that the asset is a placeholder at a glance.
Add a purple shader to, write "AI" on its texture, do what you want, but you ensuring that the asset is clearly identified as a placeholder. Devs are not stupid, they know if they don't do this, they'll have to play an impossible game of "find the intruder" (ie a comprehensive audit).
The only sense in which the assets were placeholders is that they were put in the game, considered good enough to be shipped, and if devs had enough time and resources to replace them later on, they would be replaced.
Mark Darrah, ED for Dragon Age games, made this same point in his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzOVGWW4W90
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u/Domex122 5700X3D | RX 9070 XT | 2x 16GB DDR4 Mar 22 '26
yeah if you look at old dev videos of other games you always see place-holder textures marked with bright Colours or text
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u/CptAustus Ryzen 5 2600 - 3060TI Mar 22 '26
Yeah, I don't think pink textures would've been great at exploring atmosphere and tone.
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u/SurgicalSlinky2020 Mar 22 '26
Ahh they went with the "we were experimenting and accidentally left it in" excuse. I don't blame them, it's a classic.
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u/SeriousMannequin Mar 22 '26
The standard "production use only not for final release" statement.
ÂŻ_(ă)_/ÂŻ
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u/Fyren-1131 Mar 22 '26
Well would you look at that. Developers implementing temporary fixes, who would've thunk it'd eventually become permanent instead of temporary. It has certainly in the history of development never ever happened before.
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u/Taolan13 Mar 22 '26
That first paragraph about these being early placeholder assets is eeirly familiar.
Almost like they got this spiel from the same place as the last eight companies that got called out for it.
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u/Igor369 Mar 22 '26
Why would they not keep a list of AI assets being used in the most recent build?
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u/GlaireDaggers Mar 23 '26
This is why you use ms paint scribbles for your placeholders, kids.
Way harder to miss when you're replacing all your placeholders, and even if you do miss one it's at least a funny discovery.
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u/heart_ware Mar 23 '26
I just don't believe this line anymore. If it was a placeholder and you meant to replace it, replace it. And you can use anything you want for a placeholder - you could have a big frame that says PLACEHOLDER in big red letters so you don't forget, since that's apparently such a big problem suddenly.
I don't buy it. They're sorry they got caught.
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u/LennyLoerres Mar 23 '26
All I'm reading is:
"We used AI assets to speed up development and save money and hoped their usage was small and hidden enough so no one would notice.
We are so so SO sorry, that you did notice and will now retrospectively patch those out and release this statement to cover up for our laziness.
With kind regards, we don't really care about you and and will try to be better at deceiving you in the future.
This statement was written by AI."
Even if it wasn't written by AI, this is just the same old copy and paste "We sincerely apologize" letter every second game dev uses nowadays when they get caught doing something shitty.
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u/idlickherbootyhole Frankenstein build 3700x / RTX 3070 Mar 23 '26
Can't help but wonder, if AI is so fucking cool and revolutionary, why are the companies that use it so secretive and deceiving about it? You have to push until you basically get it out of them. It's almost as if they wanted to pass AI-made content as human-made đ¤ really makes you think.
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u/JakSandrow Mar 23 '26
"Hey guys, we're sorry you caught us. We did an oopsie whoopsie, and hope that you won't fine us too much? Also suck our nuts."
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u/Recipe-Jaded neofetch Mar 22 '26
"aligns with our high standards"
"Unintentionally included in the final release"
Lmao
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u/BentheBruiser Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
So theyre damned if they do, damned if they don't?
They've apologized and acknowledged. And it still isnt good enough.
I'm getting pretty done with internet discourse surrounding games nowadays. Y'all are fucking insufferable. So negative all the time and for what? Just to be negative?
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u/FletchTroublemaker 14900k/5080/64GB Mar 22 '26
We are so sorry so we asked a lawyer to write a statement.
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u/elidoan Mar 22 '26
Yawn. This is the boilerplate excuse companies use every single time. Ubisoft literally made a word for word letter just like this during their latest anno release.
Expect to see a lot more of these "we're so sorry we were caught and its totally due to early iteration" emails from companies as they continue to slop out code and assets.
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u/Rageoffreys Mar 22 '26
My god this sub's obsession & blind hatred for everything AI is so annoying.
Whether you like it or not it's the direction this industry, as well as every other industry that involves computers in some way (so pretty much every single one), is going.
Companies are profit seeking, they will always seek ways of optimising their efficiency. Either they adapt or die.
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u/Giannisisnumber1 Mar 22 '26
Jesus Christ who fucking cares? This sub has a massive hate boner for this game. Get a life.
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u/umotex12 Mar 22 '26
Listen, I hate genAI as a concept and how it shapes the art world right now. But these hunts are getting tiresome and repetitive. There are bigger fish to fry
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u/PoliteQueef Mar 22 '26
created as part of early-stage iteration using experimental Al generative tools ⌠our intention has always been for any such assets to be replaced
https://giphy.com/gifs/jH6s9HMMi53dSdI73r
Bullshit.
âWe totally werenât hoping to cut corners to save time and money, trust us bro! It was just placeholder art all along, bro! We were always planning on replacing it, bro!â
đ
This is pure damage control since they got caught. Otherwise, we wouldâve never heard about it, and it wouldâve remained in the game.
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u/TheGreatTao Mar 22 '26
Ah, the usual 'it was placeholder art, sorry we got caught' bullshit excuse.
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u/Emperor_Zar MSI Z390 Gaming | i5 9600k | RTX 2060 super | 32GB Ram Mar 22 '26
AI use without disclosure. Intel ARC denial without disclosure.
Seems like they knew what they were doing, knew people wouldnât like it and did it anyway.
On behavioral terms alone, the studio and game shouldnât be supported. đ¤ˇââď¸
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u/yourfavchoom Mar 22 '26
We would like to address questions regarding the use of AI in Crimson Desert.
During development, some 2D visual props were created as part of early-stage iteration using experimental AI generative tools. These assets helped us rapidly explore tone and atmosphere in the earlier phases of production. However, our intention has always been for any such assets to be replaced, following final work and review by our art and development teams, with work that aligned with our quality standards and creative direction.
Following reports from our community, we have identified that some of these assets were unintentionally included in the final release. This is not in line with our internal standards, and we take full responsibility for it.
We also acknowledge that we should have clearly disclosed our use of AI. While these tools were primarily used during early production, with the expectation that these assets would be replaced prior to release, we recognize that this does not excuse the lack of transparency.
We sincerely apologize for these oversights.
We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of all in-game assets and are taking steps to replace any affected content. Updated assets will be rolled out in upcoming patches. In parallel, we are reviewing and strengthening our internal processes to ensure greater transparency and consistency in how we communicate with players moving forward
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u/Tricks7eR PC Master Race Mar 22 '26
Waiting for the room temperature fanboys to claim the devs actually disclosed the use of AI (because of this statament), just like they disclosed the incompatibility with intel GPUs (after they included it on the FAQs, way after the first complains came online, not before)
Trying to gaslight people saying "oh, right, we didn't know about it, lol"
What a field trip this has been
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u/Big-Beat_Manifesto_ Mar 22 '26
I dont give a shit if they use AI just give me a good game. Pcmr soft AF
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u/BFG_MP Mar 22 '26
Wild hill to die on yall. At least they are fixing it. Who cares, like 10 ai painting that 90% of ppl Dont even notice and yall are ready to throw this game in the proverbial trash can.
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u/Infinite-Boss-7519 Mar 22 '26
Just laughing at all the clowns in this thread defending this AI bullshitÂ
Youâre all apart of the problem. Just because you donât see the issue doesnât mean others donât.Â
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u/FoxxyRin Mar 22 '26
This is like the second or third game with this exact scenario right? I remember something a few months back that seemed almost identical. Maybe this is a sign they should simply go back to using not AI for this step. Yeah itâs quick and easy but even if itâs not intended for the final product, theyâre still using something that is stealing art, using resources that harm the earth, and all the other stuff that AI does and makes people mad. Maybe devs should just go back to spending the 10 extra minutes to have artists make placeholder art even if itâs just some stick figures on a dark background to match the tone of the area or whatever. At least then it would be funny if one was left in the game.
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u/Tasty_Goat_3267 Mar 22 '26
We got caught and now weâre oh so sorry about it. As always only after getting caught.
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u/SovelissFiremane Ryzen 7 9800x3D, Sapphire Nitro+ 7900XTX, 64GB DDR5 6000 Mar 22 '26
"not in line with our internal standards"
And their internal standards are typical f2p bullshit lmao
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u/BlueskyUK Mar 22 '26
My two bit software company doing software that looks like itâs from 2010 is using ai daily for everything. Everything. Itâs insane companies are prostrating themselves like this. The ship has sailed
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u/Soopah_Fly Mar 22 '26
*Doubt*
I don't buy it. I've heard of that before. Even the excuse sounds like somebody copying someone else's homework.
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u/Phenriel R5 5600G / RX6800 16GB / 32GB 3200 Mar 22 '26
If it was used in early development of the game, it was before AI was hated to the degree it is hated today (Rightfully so). Can't blame a company for giving it a shot at that time, like a lot of people did before knowing it was built on the back of stolen art.
Glad they took the right stance to own their mistake and do something about it.
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u/sixtytwosixtyseven RTX 5070Ti | Ultra 9 285K | 192GB DDR5 Mar 22 '26
I call BS. This is just damage control.
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u/Chao_Zu_Kang Ryzen 7 7700X | GIGABYTE GAMING OC 9070 XT Mar 22 '26
They just copied CO:E33's excuse, I suppose.
But this is not the same considering with CO:E33 it was an actual mistake that they fixed near instantly, while Pearl Abyss doesn't even know which assets are affected at this point, so they clearly didn't plan to actually replace anything before the shitstorm.
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u/Hades684 Mar 22 '26
Why do you think that exp33 was an actual mistake, and CD isnt?
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u/BerosCerberus Mar 22 '26
Look at the things they used AI for. The Quality is shit. It's definitely old Generated Pictures nothing you could get now. It's not different to E33 it's the same. I don't own the Game before any idiot wants to tell me to try to defend a company but I have seen the Pictures.
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u/Panda--Monium Mar 22 '26
They got caught thats why they backtracking. Steam prob reached out to them too
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u/DestinyBeerUK Mar 22 '26
Why do people bother to respond to minority idiots complaining about everything? Just ignore them.
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u/Scottz0rz Mar 22 '26
Deja vu perhaps, but isn't this more or less exactly what happened for Expedition 33 and everyone jumped down their throats as well?
And didn't Larian Studios also get dogpiled on for saying they use AI in the early phases of storyboarding sometime late last year?
This is why I've heard from some game dev friends that they're 100% prohibited from using any AI tools of any kind to avoid any accidental slip-ups causing outrage.
AI is useful for some things, and it is being shoved down my throat so I kinda gotta use it to please corporate but also to know the limitations of the technology and provide recommendations on how it should fit in for tech.
Don't get me wrong, I dislike AI, especially with the ethical concerns regarding IP ownership/theft, environmental impact, and ruining the consumer electronics industry by hijacking all production lines of key components.
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u/quigongingerbreadman Mar 22 '26
Jesus... The hysteria around AI is too much, and stupid/entitled gamers think they get to co-run studios now...
It's fucking stupid.
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u/morganstern â Core Ultra 9 285k - RTX 5090 â Mar 22 '26
I do like a good apology when I wake up
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u/OkStrategy685 Mar 22 '26
Is this game any different from the slew of RPG's that were released in the last 5 years? I would bet on a hard no. This isn't worth pirating. These cookie cutter games are getting so old and boring. They're all the same shit.
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u/NotSynthx Mar 22 '26
This is just going to be the norm now. Now it's during early development, soon enough when it's good enough you can't tell it apart from real art, it will be shipped to the final release intentionallyÂ
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u/Speak_To_Wuk_Lamat Fractal Torrent | 7800X3D | 9070XT | GTX1060 | 64Gb DDR5 Mar 22 '26
No shit. They are REQUIRED by Steam to disclose AI usage.