In light of Divinity director and Larian Studios co-founder Swen Vincke attracting backlash thanks to his recent comments about making use of generative AI tools, he has now once again taken to social media to clear the air. In a new post on social media platform X, Vincke wrote that “a lot has become lost in translation,” in the week since Divinity was announced.
“Larian’s DNA is agency. Everything we work towards is to the benefit of our teams, games, and players,” he wrote. “A better work day, and a better game. Our successes come from empowering people to work in their own way and bring the best out of their skill & craft, so that we can make the best RPGs we can possibly make.”
As for his discussions on the use of AI, Vincke noted that the studio not evaluating new technology and how it could be used would be irresponsible. Despite this, however, he also noted that Larian’s development processes “are always evolving”, and that the studio will make changes when its processes aren’t as efficient.
“In that context, it would be irresponsible for us not to evaluate new technologies,” he explained. “However, our processes are always evolving, and where they are not efficient or fail to align with who we are, we will make changes.”
To offer further explanation about the development of Divinity, Vincke has said that Larian will host an AMA (ask me anything) where fans of the studio’s works can ask various developers just about any question they want about the development of Divinity. Through this, Vincke hopes to be more transparent about how the studio is making use of different technologies. This AMA is slated to take place after the Holiday break, which likely means that it will happen some time in January at the earliest.
“To give you more insight, we’ll do an AMA featuring our different departments after the holiday break, in which you’ll get the opportunity to ask us any questions you have about Divinity and our dev process directly,” he wrote. “We’ll announce the date in the new year. In the meantime, I wish you all happy holidays!”
Vincke had noted earlier this week that, while he had spoken positively about the potential use of generative AI for game development, Larian Studios was only using these tools to provide more options for its concept artists, and that the developer does not have any plans to reduce its talent pool of artists.
“We’ve been continuously increasing our pool of concept artists, writers and story-tellers, are actively putting together writer rooms, casting and recording performances from actors and hiring translators,” said Vincke in his statement. “Since concept art is being called out explicitly – we have 23 concept artists and have job openings for more. These artists are creating concept art day in day out for ideation and production use.”
Further in the same statement, Vincke also noted that Larian Studios is “neither releasing a game with any AI components, nor are we looking at trimming down teams to replace them with AI. While I understand it’s a subject that invokes a lot of emotion, it’s something we are constantly discussing internally through the lens of making everyone’s working day better, not worse.”
Divinity is currently in development for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and currently has no release date.
