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AdHoc Studio co-founder and Dispatch creative director, Nick Herman, recently discussed AI with gamesindustry.biz, and said that he feels AI is a “production solution, not a creative one,” and that “Maybe it’s a creative one if you aren’t creative”.
AI is a continually growing debate within and outside the video games industry. Outside video games there has been controversy such as people using AI to copy the Studio Ghibli art style in a matter of seconds, meanwhile, within the video games industry Arc Raiders has been the most recent source of contention. Arc Raiders’ design director, Virgil Watkins, said that there is “no generative AI whatsoever,” but admitted that the extraction shooter uses the same text-to-speech system used for The Finals.
Regarding AI for voice acting, Dispatch creative director, Nick Herman, pointed to Westworld actor Jeffrey Wright who plays Chase. Herman said, “No AI is going to do what he did,” as Wright “brought something to that character that [AdHoc] weren’t expecting”. In addition to Wright, Herman said that Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul and the entire cast elevated the “material in a way that you’re just not going to get [with AI]”.
Dispatch Dev Says ‘Good Enough’ AI is the ‘Enemy’
In addition to Nick Herman, executive producer, Michael Choung, admitted that AdHoc is monitoring what AI is doing just like everyone else. However, Choung believes that AI “seems to be having a lot of trouble trying to get to a ‘good enough’ spot. And ‘good enough’ for us is the enemy”.
Choung also emphasised the importance of human connection. Whatever AdHoc is developing, “it’s got to be made by people,” Choung emphasised. The executive producer also said that AdHoc are “not getting up every morning and talking to ourselves like, ‘hey, what if we did this with less people? What’s the lowest number of people we can use to make this thing?’ This is not anything that we’re too concerned with”.
As for the controversy surrounding Arc Raiders, Choung is “not going to judge others for making other types of decisions” and he’ll “let Embark speak for themselves”. While Embark have decided to adopt the text-to-speech system used in The Finals, Choung believes that AI “doesn’t make a ton of sense” for AdHoc.
Ethical, financial, and quality debates about AI are only going to continue. Baldur’s Gate 3 actors have called for AI regulation and Mass Effect’s Jennifer Hale recently described AI as a hammer that must be used responsibly. Away from voice acting and onto production, Baldur’s Gate 3 publishing director has criticised Square Enix’s “stupid” plans to achieve 70% of QA and debugging through automated AI by 2027.
As for Dispatch, the game has been a phenomenal success so far. All episodes are now out, and its player count has more than doubled. It also incredibly sold over 1 million copies in just 10 days.
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