Whelp, AI-generated art made it into a AAA game

Well, it was only a matter of time. While AI image generators seemed to be a fun little to mess around with at the beginning, this technology is now making its way into AAA gaming. One example of this is a game coming from Square Enix. The game, called Foamstars, uses AI-generated art to an extent.

Thanks to the overall speed and efficiency of AI, many big-name companies are seeing the utility of using it. For example, There’s a partnership between Xbox and Inworld to use AI to generate NPC quests and stories. This is something that will add dimension to a game, as it could open up the door for unlimited types of quests in games. However, this is yet to be seen.

Foamstars has been confirmed to use AI-generated art

While the title seems a bit foreboding, the news isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. The game’s producer, Kosuke Okatani, said that the mass majority of the game is still done by hand. So, Foamstars is still a human-created game with human-created art. The only art that was generated was art for in-game album covers. So, the company didn’t exactly fire its entire art department.

The only question remaining is Why? What benefits did using MidJourney to make the album covers provide? Was this because of the overall efficiency or were there stylistic advantages to using AI? While the AI art accounted for a very small chunk of the game, this news will not sit well with a lot of people.

However, this is the path that Square Enix has chosen. Previously, the company announced that is going to move ‘aggressively’ to using AI technology. That’s pretty ominous for many of the workers working there, as there’s no telling if the speed and efficiency of AI technology will cost them their jobs.