Crimson Desert devs apologise for AI art as new patch makes the game easier

The developer behind Crimson Desert has apologised for not disclosing AI assets left in the final game, as a new patch addresses issues on PS5.

After launching last week to disappointing reviews, Crimson Desert feels like it’s fighting an uphill battle to gloss over its cracks.

Developer Pearl Abyss has already released several patches to fix bugs and make the PlayStation 5 version more stable, as people look for their own solutions to the problem with blurry graphics.

Over the weekend, several players on Reddit highlighted what they believed to be AI assets in the game, including ones where human bodies blend into horses and rooms which use the same recycled image.

After several posts went viral, the official X account for Crimson Desert posted a response, where they admitted to using AI assets which were supposed to be temporary placeholders.

‘During development, some 2D visual props were created as part of early stage iteration using experimental AI generative tools,’ the post reads. ‘These assets helped us rapidly explore tone and atmosphere in the earlier phases of production.

‘However, our intention has always been for any such assets to be replaced, following final work and review by our art and development teams, with work that aligned with our quality standards and creative direction.

‘Following reports from our community, we have identified that some of these assets were unintentionally included in the final release. This is not in line with our internal standards, and we take full responsibility for it.’

Along with apologising for the assets, the developer said they ‘should have clearly disclosed our use of AI’ ahead of time (on Steam, a disclaimer is now in place).

‘While these tools were primarily used during early production, with the expectation that these assets would be replaced prior to release, we recognise that this does not excuse the lack of transparency. We sincerely apologise for these oversights.’

Pearl Abyss is ‘currently conducting a comprehensive audit of all in-game assets’ to rectify the issue, with updated assets promised in future patches.

While it’s disappointing to see, this isn’t the first time temporary AI assets have made their way into a game. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the best game of last year, also had to patch out generative AI artwork after launch, while The Alters used the tool to produce in-game text, which was accidentally left in.

At the same time as the AI furore, two developers at Pearl Abyss have claimed development on Crimson Desert was plagued by a culture of ‘toxic positivity’ amongst upper management. The posts are anonymous and cannot be independently verified, but they were posted to Blind (via Reddit), a forum which requires users to verify their identity in order to join.

The first post claims there’s no mention of the titular ‘Crimson Desert’ in the game because the ‘story was not decided until right before release’.

As outlined in by the anonymous source, a director was allegedly ‘pushed out in a power struggle and resigned’ during development, which led to a new general manager being appointed from an art background, who started ‘overturning everything’.

‘This person who became General Manager is a general manager in name only; they are just a compliant subordinate,’ the post claims. ‘And every person in the team who holds a rank is just a compliant subordinate. Individual will? Personal opinion? They do not exist.’

They go onto claim, following the launch of The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom, management ‘hurriedly followed and [added] sky islands that make no sense’, adding: ‘They brought in functions from various games as references, but without understanding at all why those functions were put into those games, they exist only as a means for a purpose.’

A second post from an unnamed source, who was apparently a part of the Crimson Desert team ‘for a long time’, echoes these allegations, adding that a lot of the complaints in reviews were highlighted by team members ahead of launch.

‘All the common flaws users point out are the exact things we used to gather and say, ‘Isn’t this a bit weird?’ From here on out, I expect they will try to shift the blame-digging through the development history of individuals to find someone to pin the responsibility on for why it turned out this way.’

While these claims are unverified, and come via machine translation, these were exactly the complaints we had about the game in our review, where we found it to be a hotchpotch of often conflicting elements from other titles.

Regardless, and to the developer’s credit, Pearl Abyss isn’t slowing down when it comes to rectifying issues with patches. Today (March 23), the team rolled out update 1.00.03, which has made the game easier, with reduced health for certain enemies, improvements to the controls across console and PC, and food items that now restore more health.

Additionally, it’s said crash issues on the map screen affecting PlayStation 5 players have been fixed too, which hopefully will be verified as fans continue to play the game.

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