Baldur’s Gate 3 CEO says AI won’t ever make “generic slop” at Larian, and humans won’t be replaced by automated tools

Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios is now working on two new games after leaving its award-winning Dungeons and Dragons game behind. With the game studio now ramping up hiring for its new projects, including an all-new storytelling department, there’s a lot of human talent working at the developer.

However, with the rise of AI across the industry, Larian CEO Swen Vincke admits that there are uses for the technology at the developer. However, the studio will not be replacing humans with generative AI, and it won’t be making “generic slop”.

Baldur’s Gate 3 studio won’t use AI for “generic slop”

Speaking in a recent video interview, Vincke explained that there are multiple uses for artificial intelligence tools at Larian Studios. While AI will technically be used at Larian, Vincke explains that it won’t be the generative, work-stealing kind that results in awful AI images, but instead machine learning that assists development.

“Machine learning means a lot of things, right?” the Larian lead said. “First is automation of tasks that nobody wants to do—it’s the obvious things like emotion capture cleaning or voice editing. Retargeting. So that is basically, if you play with different species, you want to be able to reuse an animation on a different species… so these are things where machine learning works very well.”

Vincke explained that certain stages of development like “whiteboxing” is a prime example of using forms of machine learning to allow for faster iteration and experiment with more permutations. However, the human touch at Larian will never disappear.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to see anything that’s generated in the game itself.”

LARIAN STUDIOS CEO SWEN VINCKE

“The the art of development remains an art,” the Larian CEO said. “It’s not an exact science… we talk about those red flags. I think the thing that people will mostly respond to, and no doubt will probably respond to, is the human touch element of it. So that’s where people are like, ‘Oh, if you’re kind of, you know, speeding everything up using automation, what’s the line between making sure that, you know, you still have that human touch part of it?’ Because we’ve seen we’ve seen art out there now that is generated very quickly and the more scrutiny you give it the more you realise, ‘Oh, this is missing things, it’s soulless.’”

“The game won’t turn into kind of you know like generic slop,” the Baldur’s Gate 3 lead said. “I don’t think you’re ever going to see anything that’s generated in the game itself… in terms of the content that’s being created. That’s still mean being made by hand.”

While AI may be used for white-boxing or early development, Larian is committed to making sure that their games are being made by talented developers with passion for creating new stories for their players to enjoy.

Most importantly, Vincke explained that AI will not be replacing anyone at Larian Studios. The Baldur’s Gate 3 team is expanding, not dwindling, because of the rise of AI. As Vincke explained, the “human touch” isn’t going anywhere.

“The reason why people typically have the red alarm, the red bells or the red flags or red lights going on, is because it’s going to affect people or it’s going to steal their work,” the CEO said. “At least for us in those departments which are typically flagged in those areas, you see that the amount of people that we’re hiring is going up, not going down.”