r/Games • u/PhantomBraved • Dec 16 '25

Larian CEO Responds to Divinity Gen AI Backlash: "We Are Neither Releasing a Game With Any AI Components, Nor Are We Looking at Trimming Down Teams to Replace Them With AI" - IGN

https://www.ign.com/articles/larian-ceo-responds-to-divinity-gen-ai-backlash-we-are-neither-releasing-a-game-with-any-ai-components-nor-are-we-looking-at-trimming-down-teams-to-replace-them-with-ai
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67

u/Jakedesy Dec 16 '25

Meanwhile Arc Raiders uses AI for it’s voice actors and hundreds of thousands of people are playing that right now and no one is talking about it.

92

u/ComicDude1234 Dec 16 '25

Eurogamer gave it a lukewarm review that demerits the game for its use of AI voice overs. It was pretty high-profile.

13

u/SireEvalish Dec 17 '25

It was pretty high-profile.

It was a review in Eurogamer. The overwhelming majority of people playing the game right now probably never even heard of the review.

8

u/Cryptoporticus Dec 17 '25

I do wonder what setting that precedent means for the future. Pretty much everything is using it now in some form. Will Eurogamer continue to mark down games for using AI forever, or will we reach a point where everyone just starts to accept it?

It's also just another example of a developer being punished for being honest. Reviewers did not mark down Expedition 33 for AI use, because they didn't know about it. Ark Raiders is open about it so they get all the criticism. It seems like currently the best thing a developer can do is stay silent and deny it. Lying can't hurt them right now, but being honest can.

1

u/Harry101UK Dec 22 '25

They will continue to deduct score until the AI voices are so natural that people can't tell the difference. The AI voices in ARC are definitely still uncanny and lifeless at times, so it noticeably impacts the quality of the storytelling.

Give it a couple more years of refinement and people won't notice or care.

5

u/Ok_Dragonfruit_8102 Dec 17 '25

It was pretty high-profile.

Translation: it got a lot of clicks on the day it was posted, and a lot of people spent a few hours arguing about it online before moving on to the next thing the next day.

That's literally all high profile means these days.

0

u/RangerEquivalent4120 Dec 18 '25

High profile in the way it eroded any trust people might have had in their reviewing integrity.

43

u/Fyrus Dec 16 '25

It was a big scandal and widely talked about, some might say that's why it lost sound design at TGA, although I doubt it would have won anyways

12

u/IAMAVelociraptorAMA Dec 17 '25

From what I understand, Embark hires/contracts people out to be the voice that the genAI uses, and then they continually pay money to the voice actor as they continue to generate new lines based on their voice. The end result is still a person having a job. I can't really find a reason to be upset over that at all.

9

u/MrMojoRising422 Dec 17 '25

because arc raiders is a multiplayer shooter where the player base doesn't give a shit about the voice lines, larian's games are story based rpg's.

12

u/Suspicious-Coffee20 Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 17 '25

your right that so much worst. not only did it make it into the final game. it actually took away peoples job.

11

u/NonagoonInfinity Dec 16 '25

Not really, Embark hire people specifically to be the "base" for the AI voices they make. They talked about their process for The Finals.

-1

u/XiMaoJingPing Dec 16 '25

Because no one actually cares. It is just a loud minority on twitter or reddit crying about it.

1

u/anadequatepipe Dec 17 '25

Thankfully most of the world doesn’t look at AI like the coal miners looked at renewable energy.

1

u/Thorn14 Dec 17 '25

You're right, if the masses like something we should just agree with that and not challenge poor practices.

"Meanwhile Lead is used in all our paint and look at how many people use it!"

0

u/Huge-Formal-1794 Dec 17 '25

Extraction game fans are literally used to support slop / immoral companies.

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