The Director of a Popular RPG Game Discusses AI and Shares Opinions That Fans Will Appreciate

Game news The director of Baldur's Gate 3 explains himself about AI and his strong opinion will reassure many

The CEO of Larian interviewed on Baldur's Gate but also on artificial intelligence

Last Tuesday, our colleagues from IGN have published a generous interview with Larian Studio boss Sven Vicke. The latter became known to the general public this year with the role-playing game Baldur's Gate 3. This video game adaptation of the board game universe Dungeons and Dragons met with colossal success. This is evidenced by the numerous prizes won, such as that of game of the year at The Game Awards (considered the “Oscars” of video games) last December.

We learn in this interview that, despite the laurels received, Larian Studio is moving on. Sven Vicke explains that he is not making DLC ​​for Baldur's Gate 3 nor a possible Baldur's Gate 4. The publisher, Wizards of the Coast, must then call on others.

In this interview, other topics are also discussed. Sven Vicke is questioned about the content that changed along the way or even was deleted. But he is also questioned regarding the assertive comments he is currently making about the industry. Themes like “the greed of certain publishers” but also on artificial intelligence.

Generative AI is subject to criticism, but there are a large number of other areas where AI needs to be integrated into the process. So my position on AI is very simple. It's a tool we use to help us do things faster. We have so much work that we are happy to have help from any tool. I don't think it will ever replace the creative side of things and I can walk the talk.

Sven Vicke even considers that it will not replace “never the creative side of things”. A statement that can reassure. Since the start of the year, studios, large and small, have been laying off workers.

See Baldur's Gate 3 on GOG

“AI will be grafted onto something artisanal”

It is therefore easy to make the link (but not necessarily justified) between the logic of profitability and the use of generative artificial intelligence. At the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (the largest annual electronics show), the company Nvidia presented (a second time after that of May 2023) its ACE technology. A technology which consists of transposing generative AI models into video games so that the characters not controlled by the player are more real, more plausible in their interactions. A process that Sven Vicke returned to

What I think is that in the future I don't believe that all NPCs will be generated, but most likely everything will happen the same way. I rather think that there will be something artisanal and that AI will be added to it to improve it. And it should be done in a way that it's invisible, so you don't know there's been a change.

This is one of the visions of the future that he displays for AI while specifying for the short and medium term. Enough to already make an appointment with him on the occasion of the release of his next game to ask him the question.