After a placing debut at 2025’s Sport Awards, the following Divinity sport from Larian Studios confronted extreme backlash over Swen Vincke’s quotes concerning using generative AI for idea artwork exploration. Now, a Reddit AMA has helped clear issues out, although the solutions given won’t be sufficient for some gamers.
Following what we will solely describe as an enormous pre-Christmas shitstorm of biblical proportions, Larian introduced a Reddit AMA session that may occur in early 2026. Past the genAI speak, the builders would additionally illuminate their imaginative and prescient for the upcoming turn-based RPG, which goals to increase on all the pieces that made Baldur’s Gate 3 a contemporary basic.
“To make sure there isn’t any room for doubt, we’ve determined to chorus from utilizing genAI instruments throughout idea artwork growth,” Larian CEO and Divinity director Swen Vincke confirmed throughout the AMA on January 9. Again in December, he’d already said no AI-generated belongings would ship within the last sport, but many gamers, builders, and artists rightfully rejected the concept of enjoying with it throughout the early idea phases, at it solely hurts the belief placed on the studio.
“I do know there’s been a variety of dialogue about us utilizing AI instruments as a part of idea artwork exploration. We already stated this doesn’t imply the precise idea artwork is generated by AI however we perceive it created confusion,” he stated of the dialog sparked by his feedback throughout an interview with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. Following his phrases concerning the studio having embraced the know-how regardless of pushback early on, the veteran artistic even needed to step away from the social channels, casting doubt over his function on the firm transferring ahead.
Now, it appears nothing’s actually altering past transferring away from genAI throughout “idea artwork exploration.” Regardless, we gained’t be stunned if the dialog across the sport has been terribly poisoned for the foreseeable, as we’re being requested to take Vincke at his phrase after a frankly stunning show of not getting what made the artistic course of that allowed video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and previous Divinity entries to be so particular.
Even now, he isn’t outright rejecting using the tech at some stage in growth. The second a part of his publish will little doubt proceed to boost eyebrows: “We predict GenAI might help with this and so we’re making an attempt issues out throughout departments. Our hope is that it might probably support us to refine concepts sooner, resulting in a extra centered growth cycle, much less waste, and in the end, a higher-quality sport… The vital bit to notice is that we’ll not generate “artistic belongings” that find yourself in a sport with out being 100% certain concerning the origins of the coaching knowledge and the consent of those that created the information. If we use a GenAI mannequin to create in-game belongings, then it’ll be educated on knowledge we personal.” Because the video games trade both goes large on AI or begins rejecting its use in most artistic endeavors, we’ll must cope with this dialog many extra instances.
In different information extracted from this AMA (which is nicely price a glance), we now know one thing about a number of of Divinity’s key options:
The loot system might be comparable BG3’s (extra handcrafted and fewer randomized). No engine change. It’ll use an iteration of the Divinity Engine. No keyboard motion controls out of the field (as launched by a beloved WASD mod) on PC. Co-op at launch, with “no laborious restrict to the quantity of coop gamers.” “Extra grounded,” however nonetheless tonally versatile just like the studio’s previous video games. The magic armor system from Unique Sin 2 gained’t return. Related digicam modes to BG3’s.
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