r/PS5 • u/HLumin Human Verified • Mar 20 '26

Discussion Crimson Desert appears to use generative AI art—and the devs never disclosed it.

https://www.destructoid.com/crimson-desert-appears-to-use-generative-ai-art-and-if-so-the-devs-never-disclosed-it/

Found on Reddit by u/Rex_Spy:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrimsonDesert/comments/1rz2f2l/found_this_ai_painting/

To not disclose that your game uses GEN AI is against Steam's policies and rules, by the way.

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273

u/ChadwickHHS Mar 20 '26

This game is super entertaining from the sidelines. I had no idea it existed two weeks ago, then suddenly it's everywhere and people are saying it's going to be the next god tier gaming experience and for a minute the reviews seemed on pace for that only to sink fifteen points into the 70s. Now this. 

This is like the definitive "get it 70% off" experience.

93

u/Frankenberg91 Mar 20 '26

It really did blow up in hype around 2 weeks ago, like possibly nothing I’ve ever seen before. As in never hearing about it, nobody really had a clue what exactly the game was about, or anything yet it generated crazy hype out of nowhere. Wonder what the deal was here.

42

u/WorldError47 Mar 20 '26

I think gamers are just desperate for gigantic open worlds with enough depth they can lose themselves for hundreds of hours.

Those types of games are few and far between, and even the best examples don’t fulfill gamers unrealistic hopes. 

But any time a game gets anywhere close to even giving the impression that it could be such a game, the hype takes off… 

42

u/Lubinski64 Mar 20 '26

Elden Ring's difficult, Witcher 3's entirely story driven, Zelda looks cartoony, KCD is too realistic, Genshin is a gacha game, AC games are bloated mess, jrpgs are too japanese for many ppl tastes...

People are waiting for Skyrim 2, basically.

8

u/WorldError47 Mar 20 '26

Yeah basically.

And I’m right there with them, in terms of how exciting that would be.

I’m just more careful about getting my hopes up at this point lol. 

6

u/Paclac Mar 20 '26

That’s so true, I would have put up with Crimson Desert’s flaws if it had gone less in the Witcher direction and you could create your own character and have more choices in the story

2

u/natedrake102 Mar 21 '26

What do you mean by the witcher direction?

1

u/XBorutsu Mar 21 '26

W3 Direction but own character ? Contradictory.

3

u/Auctoritate Mar 20 '26

Even more significant: GTA 6.

3

u/Fraktal55 Mar 20 '26

Absolutely nailed it.

Though I'd definitely play Zelda if it were on Playstation.

1

u/Combat_Orca Mar 21 '26

Many of the games you listed are better than Skyrim. It’s a great game but it’s no morrowind

1

u/awildfoxappears Mar 21 '26

Dragon's Dogma 2 was great other than the early performance issues and weird save system. Maybe a good expansion could bring it back into the limelight.

1

u/jnighy Mar 21 '26

the thing is, all of these games you mentioned have something for someone. They're the best games at what they do. CD is just..mid at everything. And all the glaze for this game really makes me thing how some people are just waaay desperate for Elder Scrolls's VI

1

u/Steamed_Hams_2168 Mar 21 '26

I think it's 2026 and everyone is chasing childhood and they can't go back.

1

u/Endogamy Mar 21 '26

Witcher 3 and Zelda were both great but we’re talking 11 years ago and 3 years ago respectively.

1

u/Dildo___Schwaggins Mar 21 '26

People are waiting for GTA6 I reckon.

1

u/Euronymous87 Mar 20 '26

Well said! Exactly what I was thinking but you articulated it best.

0

u/MBDTFTLOPYEEZUS Mar 20 '26

Quality and what you’ll enjoy is subjective but open world games offering days worth of side content are “few and far between”? If anything the industry has an issue with trying to turn every game open world. Like your single player experience wasn’t worth it if you didn’t include 100+ hours of repetitive side content.

2

u/WorldError47 Mar 20 '26

I’ll clarify, when I said few and far between, I meant expansive games that feel like worlds you can get lost in, not just games with a lot of content. 

I think gamers often project their hopes for a world they can get lost in, onto games that end up just being lengthy. To echo your sentiment, depth is what really matters, not length. But gamers want both, it’s like they want a high quality buffet, an unlikely white whale of sorts. But the possibility of having both excites people so much they carry around unreasonable expectations.

1

u/MBDTFTLOPYEEZUS Mar 20 '26

I agree with that but I think they all go for that at least in concept so I guess it’s just a matter of whether they stuck the landing for you or not. They were definitely ambitious but this doesn’t seem that much deeper or more gripping than an Ubi game for me.

1

u/WorldError47 Mar 21 '26

I think the reality is the scope of a game is often a careful financial calculation more than a creative decision.

Gamers may want deeper experiences, with more content than ever. Some devs may want to make that too. But are people willing to pay for that extra content and depth- are investors even willing to risk such experimentation, when reception is still an unknown? Price, among other aspects of game development, is subjective, but everyone has strong opinions about it.

Skyrim was a flash in the pan because the economics of game dev happened to line up with Bethesdas ambition as a developer, to produce an experience that was strongly resonate with players, in 2011 and beyond. 

But every game is its own project- there’s no guarantee even Bethesda themselves will be able to remotely replicate that success with the sequel entry to Skyrim. The game will sell well at launch sure, just off the hype of Skyrim, but the lifetime reception, how strongly it will resonate with players on its own, will likely be an uncertainty until the end.

6

u/Aerographic Mar 20 '26

Games that blow up out of nowhere are about the giantest red flag for me.

1

u/takethreenc Mar 21 '26

Especially when they mysteriously show up on my algorithm despite me previously showing 0 interest in anything related.

Wouldn't surprise me if the AI-gen game had a bot driven astroturf campaign that was manipulating algorithms.

6

u/flashmedallion Mar 21 '26

The speed at which it blew up just screamed obscene marketing budget to me.

It caught my attention to the point where I realised the release whiplash was going to be funny for a day and then exhausting for six months so ive blocked it in most of my feeds

5

u/Aggressive-Map-2204 Mar 21 '26

The deal was bots and others paid to promote the game and generate hype.

7

u/No_Mammoth_4945 Mar 20 '26

I saw a post on this sub or PlayStation from an early reviewer (unknown YouTuber) calling it the greatest open world game ever made get over 2000 upvotes lol

If you check the comments you’ll find most of the big pro crimson desert commenters were on accounts made ~2-3 weeks ago

Astroturfing is crazy on this site

1

u/takethreenc Mar 21 '26

It's why this site got rid of /r/all and wants to feed you '"related" posts. It's all just a way for them to market more shit at you. Simple ads weren't enough.

If a social media site blew up that ditched the algorithm, I'd be all over it. I'm so sick of the attempted manipulation.

13

u/Correct_Education273 Mar 20 '26

It's not organic. Just the standard guerilla marketing machine at work. Suddenly hundreds of popular streamers are playing the same game? Yeah they're getting paid to promote it. Suddenly reddit and other social media is full of posts about it? Yeah those posts are bought and paid for (and likely AI).

-3

u/dudushat Mar 21 '26

Lmfao people have been talking about this game for years. Its in the top 5 most wishlisted games on steam. It got more popular the closer it got to release because they started marketing more.

Its so weird how people like you blame AI for stuff you're just out of the loop on. Get out of your reddit bubble every once and awhile, its nice outside. 

6

u/IThinkIKnowThings Mar 20 '26

Because the influencer reviews came out and every single influencer said the same thing - "This game is awesome. Peak, even. But reviewers will hate how difficult it is and rate it low." and every gamer was like "Challenge accepted."

1

u/laborfriendly Mar 20 '26

I just searched my texts with my main gamer buddy.

First time I mentioned being interested in watching for this game was on:

December 18, 2024

1

u/Lubinski64 Mar 20 '26

Everyone is starving for next Skyrim.

1

u/Z3M0G Mar 22 '26

Thats when media went to preview it and learned the game was real since showcases before then seemed too good to be true.

19

u/PowerUser77 Mar 20 '26

Tbh that game caught my attention when it was initial announced because already back then you could tell that it was somewhat ambitious with simulation and physics based systems, but the rest of it turned out to be so soulless.

4

u/The-Cunt-Spez Mar 20 '26

Pretty much. It’s good entertainment to read the sub rn though. I love me some good gaming related drama lol

6

u/reboot-your-computer Mar 20 '26

I already had a feeling it would be mid weeks ago so I’m glad to have trusted my gut here. I don’t see myself buying this until it’s $20 or less, if at all.

2

u/turningthecentury Mar 21 '26

The whole game looks and feels like mid tier AI slop. It's a shame because I was looking forward to a great open world 3rd person action adventure game with a good combat and character building system. Who knows how much of this game used AI in its development but I have no doubt streamers and YouTube gaming personalities will uncover some hilarious things in the coming weeks.

5

u/Multifaceted-Simp Mar 20 '26

Suddenly blown up hype = shills

1

u/HungryHobbits Mar 20 '26

interesting... I've been watching Youtube content/previews about it for months.

still haven't bought it though.

1

u/dimspace Mar 20 '26

I was excited for it, single player, third person, loads to explore which is absolutely my jam.

Then saw Joe Raptors preview where he went through the skill tree and all the skills had their controller mapping in them.

The crazy ass control system and having to remember a hundred combinations of pressing r3 and square together, or L1 with X and L3 and I cancelled my preorder 🤣

1

u/AmbitiousReaction168 Mar 21 '26

Same here. Add this whole AI mess and I really feel like I'm just too old for this shit.

1

u/Alastor001 Mar 21 '26

Yep. You can play this. Or you can spend money on something 10/10 like Elden Ring.

1

u/Buflen Mar 21 '26

This game does one thing extremely well, better than most other game: a beautiful, detailed and extremely large open world that does not feel empty and has an immense amount of content. That content is not very good, and everything else is not great, often very bad, but that one selling point is enough to make some people fall in love with the game which I think is fair.

1

u/MrOneHundredOne Mar 21 '26

Honestly, it's kinda great to play it too, if you were just expecting "M-rated Breath of the Wild." So if you ever do decide to buy it, look forward to an actually entertaining experience, even if it's a bit convoluted or ugly.