While Krafton’s showcase of Project Windless looked quite impressive, the trailer has caused many to ask if the company is making use of generative AI for its development. Speaking to Eurogamer, a spokesperson for the company has confirmed that the studio is not making use of any generative AI tools for the creation of art or narrative.
Noting that studios under the Krafton banner tend to have a high level of independence when it comes to how they want to apply their creativity, the company believes in allowing them the freedom to decide on their own tools. To that end, for Project Windless, the use of AI has revolved around “exploratory phases”, and that none of the player-facing features were involved.
“Krafton’s studios operate with a high degree of creative independence, enabling each team to select the tools and methods that best suit their projects,” said the spokesperson. “For Project Windless, the Montreal team is taking a traditional, craftsmanship-driven approach to single-player development. The team primarily uses AI internally during exploratory phases to support iteration and efficiency rather than as a central, player-facing feature of the game.
The AI that is being used for the game isn’t really what is commonly considered generative AI in this day and age. Rather, it describes machine learning systems that have been used in game development for decades at this point. Project Windless uses it for NPC behaviour systems, and for fine-tuning animations depending on their environments.
“Project Windless uses traditional game AI systems to drive NPC behaviour and bring the world and its characters to life beyond combat. These systems govern how characters react, move, and behave in the environment. We are not using generative AI for content creation or narrative elements,” they said.
Project Windless is going to be an adaptation of the Korean fantasy book series The Bird That Drinks Tears. The trailer gave us a simple story setup, giving us our first glimpse at a Nhaga holding a heart, before eventually cutting to gameplay. The hack-and-slash action game seems to take quite a few cues from Koei Tecmo’s Warriors series, since players, taking on the role of a Rekon, will have to deal with hundreds of enemies in epic battlefields.
While most regular enemies will seemingly be dealt with quite quickly, it looks like bosses will require more thought on the players’ part. Not only do they have hard-hitting, heavy attacks, the boss fights also seem to make good use of the masses of regular soldiers they have at their disposal to ensure that the player is constantly facing pressure and has to figure out their next moves under duress.
Not many details about Project Windless have been revealed so far. However, the book series that it is based on has been praised quite a bit for its worldbuilding aspects, with author Lee Youngdo having gone to great lengths to establish the cultures, languages, and belief systems of the various races that inhabit the world of The Bird That Drinks Tears. This can only mean great news for players, since strong worldbuilding also tends to serve as strong foundations for any given story.
