Larian Studios Caught in AI Shitstorm After Divinity Reveal Because Gamers Cant Have Nice Things

So Larian Studios – you know, the folks who gave us Baldurs Gate 3 literally one of the best RPGs in recent history – decided to announce Divinity at The Game Awards. Should’ve been a massive W right? Wrong. Because within like 48 hours the entire internet decided to crucify them over AI usage and I’m sitting here like… are we doing this right now.

Here’s what went down. Larian CEO Swen Vincke did an interview with Bloomberg where he mentioned the studio uses generative AI “to explore ideas” during development. Not in the final game mind you. Just for prototyping and internal brainstorming stuff. And the gaming community absolutely lost its collective mind.

The backlash was instant and brutal. Former Larian employees started speaking out – artist Selena Tobin who worked on BG3 posted on Bluesky basically saying she “loved working at Larian until AI” and told them to reconsider their direction “like yesterday”. Ouch. That’s when you know peoples feelings are legitimately hurt not just performative outrage.

But here’s where it gets messy. Larian publishing director Michael Douse tried defending the studio on X (still cant call it Twitter sorry Elon). He pointed out they’ve hired 72 artists including 23 concept artists and theyre actively hiring MORE. The whole point of using AI tools was to make workflows better for individual artists not replace them. And they explicitly said no AI-generated content will appear in Divinity. None.

Vincke himself got on social media dropping F-bombs left and right – “Holy fuck guys were not pushing hard for or replacing concept artists with AI” – which honestly I respect the raw emotion there. Guy spent years building one of the most beloved studios in gaming and now hes getting dragged for trying to make his teams lives easier with internal tools that nobody will ever see.

And look I get it. The AI discussion in gaming is legitimately important. We’ve seen studios like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 get caught with actual AI-generated textures that shipped in the final game (they quietly patched them out btw super shady). The Indie Game Awards literally stripped Clair Obscur of its GOTY awards THIS WEEK because of it. So peoples guard is up I understand that.

But Larian? The studio that hired 15 MORE concept artists when they needed more art? The one that continues expanding its team across all departments? Are we really gonna lump them in with companies using AI to cut costs and fire people? Similar to other gaming controversies we’ve covered, context matters here.

The timing of this whole controversy is wild too. It came right on the heels of a massive survey from Quantic Foundry showing 85% of gamers have below-neutral attitudes toward AI in games with 63% selecting the most negative option possible. So the community was already primed to be angry about this stuff.

Vincke announced theyll do an AMA after the holidays to clear everything up directly with fans. Which is probably smart because clearly a lot got “lost in translation” as he put it. The dudes trying to make “everyones working day better not worse” according to Douse but that message definitely didnt land initially.

What kills me is this shouldve been Larians victory lap. They just revealed their most ambitious RPG yet going back to the Divinity series that built the studio. Instead theyre doing damage control over workflow tools that have zero impact on what players will actually experience.

The whole situation just highlights how hypersensitive the gaming community has become around AI. Which on one hand fair – we’ve seen enough shady implementations to warrant skepticism. But on the other hand maybe we should save the pitchforks for studios actually putting AI slop in their games and firing artists rather than ones expanding their creative teams while experimenting with internal productivity tools.

Larian built incredible goodwill with BG3. Literally set new standards for RPGs and player choice and meaningful consequences. Now theyre navigating this minefield where even mentioning AI gets you ratio’d into oblivion. Its exhausting honestly – reminds me of how the gaming industry navigates controversies.

I dunno maybe Im being too charitable here. But when a studio goes out of its way to hire MORE human artists explicitly states no AI content in the final game and is using these tools purely for internal ideation… that feels different than whats happening at other places. The context matters.

Guess well see what comes out of the AMA. Vincke better bring receipts though because the internet has decided Larian is guilty until proven innocent and thats a rough position to be in when you just wanted to announce your next game.

Meanwhile Divinity still looks sick and I’m still gonna play it day one assuming this controversy doesn’t tank the whole project which would be the dumbest timeline.