Resident Evil Requiem Developer Capcom Insists It Won't Use AI-Generated Assets in Its Games, but Will Harness Tech to Make Game Development Processes More Efficient

Capcom has clarified its existent stance connected generative AI successful its videogames. The large Japanese steadfast and developer down fashionable bid similar Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Monster Hunter has revealed that portion it doesn't usage gen-AI assets successful their games, it is exploring ways to usage generative AI to streamline the crippled improvement process.

On March 23, Capcom publicized the questions and answers from its latest shareholders’ meeting. In this session, Capcom was asked astir its stance connected utilizing generative AI successful crippled development.

“We volition not instrumentality assets generated by AI into our games.” Capcom replied. “However, we program to proactively usage it arsenic a contributing exertion to amended the ratio and productivity of the crippled improvement process. To this end, we are presently exploring ways to instrumentality it successful assorted areas, including graphics, dependable and programming."

As antecedently reported by Japanese quality tract Game*Spark, Capcom revealed backmost successful January 2025 that it built a prototype “idea generation” strategy utilizing Google Cloud. Basically, it's a strategy that uses generative AI to assistance brainstorm ideas to soma retired a game’s world, thing that Capcom’s method manager Kazuki Abe described arsenic 1 of the astir labor-intensive and clip consuming tasks successful crippled development, arsenic each point has to beryllium created from scratch.

With truthful galore items and inheritance details successful the affluent environments of games similar the Monster Hunter series, Abe noted that “ultimately, we person to travel up with hundreds of thousands of unsocial ideas” for examination and evaluation. Each of the thousands of items successful a crippled requires aggregate proposals including substance and ocular references, to marque definite that adjacent inheritance objects acceptable the game’s setting.

Capcom’s Google Cloud-based strategy uses generative AI to work assorted crippled plan documents (including text, images, and spreadsheets) and output further ideas based connected them, frankincense speeding up the conceptualization process. The strategy allows individuals to usage generative AI to brainstorm and make ideas connected their own, and has seemingly been highly evaluated by Capcom’s staff. Abe explained that generative AI tin beryllium utilized to nutrient ocular references to convey ideas to creation directors and artists, who yet nutrient the finished assets.

So it seems that Capcom volition usage generative AI to streamline time-consuming and repetitive crippled improvement tasks, but existent crippled contented volition inactive beryllium made by humans.

Generative AI successful the games manufacture is simply a blistery topic, and Capcom has precocious popped up successful the quality owed to Resident Evil Requiem being utilized successful the tech demo for Nvidia’s DLSS 5 AI graphics tech past week. The uncover drew wide disapproval for giving Resi protagonists Grace and Leon a “photo-realistic” glow-up that immoderate recovered soulless and an insult to the archetypal artists' vision. Nvidia aboriginal confirmed that DLSS 5 is redrawing games by taking frames and question vector information from the root material, and drafting a caller representation that’s slapped connected top.

A survey by Game Developer published earlier this twelvemonth recovered that 36% of manufacture professionals are utilizing GenAI successful their regular work. However, the survey besides showed astir 80% relied connected it for researching and brainstorming, with much analyzable and originative tasks inactive requiring a quality touch.

Speaking astatine Gamescom successful Bangkok past October, Dead Space creator Glen Schofield argued that AI could beryllium utilized to hole a games manufacture beleaguered by rising costs and layoffs. “AI isn’t present to regenerate us,” Schofield opined. “It’s present to marque america faster, better, and much efficient.”

Still developers are having to tread cautiously with AI, and immoderate person endured high-profile backlashes from fans. Last year, Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian was forced to respond to a Divinity GenAI backlash, yet promising not to merchandise the crippled with immoderate AI components. And conscionable this weekend, Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss announced it had launched a “comprehensive” audit of each in-game assets aft admitting the usage of AI-generated images successful the last merchandise should person been disclosed.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.