‘Every game company is now using AI’: Nexon’s CEO defends the use of generative AI in game development in the wake of Arc Raiders’ controversy

Arc Raiders has taken the gamers by storm, achieving more than 700,000 concurrent players over the weekend, beating Helldivers 2’s player record, and just generally proving that extraction shooters can indeed be fun. But all of these successes have unfortunately been mired by Embark Studio’s use of generative AI for its voice acting.

To this end, Nexon’s CEO Junghun Lee recently addressed Nexon’s projects (which include Embark’s The Finals and Arc Raiders) and his stance on using AI in making videogames in an interview with Game*Spark (via Automaton): “First of all, I think it’s important to assume that every game company is now using AI. But if everyone is working with the same or similar technologies, the real question becomes: how do you survive? I believe it’s important to choose a strategy that increases your competitiveness.”

The truth about Arc Raiders’ use of generative AI has proved hard to pin down, shifting from claims that there’s no AI-generated content in the game to defenses of the use of “machine learning” as an efficient way to get work done: “AI has definitely improved efficiency in both game production and live service operations,” Lee adds.

I do feel as if I can’t go anywhere on the internet anymore without stumbling across weird AI-generated videos or getting jumpscared by images of my new sleep paralysis demon, Peter Thiel. But even still, I never just assume that studios are all utilising generative AI.

If anything, I assume that studios are avoiding generative AI like the plague. Last year, Nintendo became the biggest gaming company to swear off AI during an investor call. CD Projekt has since said it will not use generative AI on The Witcher 4, and Pocketpair has been quite clear that its new publishing division will not handle games that use generative AI.

This isn’t to say that Embark and Nexon are the only ones using AI in their work. World of Warcraft devs have admitted to using machine learning to cut out busy work, and AI-accelerated frame generation has certainly proved itself as the way of the future. But using AI to make burdensome tasks easier is entirely different from using it to cut out the need for voice actors, as Arc Raiders has done.

The idea that a studio that was acquired by Nexon for $96 million needs to cut corners by not paying voice actors to record lines is laughable. Using the excuse that voice actors wouldn’t even want to come back to the booth to record short lines, as it’s not seen “as valuable work,” is also unconvincing. Richard Charles Lintern spent five hours recording just one speech for Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

But I don’t have to argue how important it is for companies to hold onto human-led creativity in an era where so many are taking shortcuts, because Lee does it for me. At the end of his short interview on the uses of generative AI, he settles on how “human creativity” is the answer to rising above the competition. It’s a truth that makes Arc Raiders’ use of generative AI all the more frustrating: It really is a stain on what is otherwise one of the best multiplayer shooters I’ve played in a very long time.