Middling reviews and plummeting stocks haven’t prevented Crimson Desert from reaching a tremendous 2 million units sold merely a day after its release. However, a new controversy surrounding developer Pearl Abyss’s massive RPG seems to be brewing, and it involves everyone’s favorite subject these days: AI-generated art.
In the past few hours, a number of Crimson Desert players have taken to Reddit, Bluesky, and other social media platforms with images depicting what they suspect to be generative AI-created art. In each instance, it seems to be environmental art–like ornate portraits or medieval woodcut-inspired paintings–that is being called into question. In one example, Reddit user Ok-Error-403 explained their reasoning, writing: “Signs of AI: [T]hree fingers on the hand holding the bag and four on the left hand is the biggest giveaway. Also AI does linocut patterns this way where the strokes aren’t consistent and has wonky folding for clothing. I could be wrong … would love to be, but I’m 99% sure it’s AI.”
On Bluesky, user Lex Luddy shared a series of images of an ornate portrait which, upon closer inspection, depicts mushy-faced warriors atop many-limbed horses. It only takes a cursory glance to realize this picture doesn’t suit Crimson Desert’s more grounded art direction, and is far more in line with what we see in generative AI-created images. These images were also shared on Reddit, with user Rex_Spy writing that those who wish to see it themselves should go to “Oakenshield Manor, in the southwest part of the first city/town. It’s the staircase in the back of the manor.”
GameSpot has reached out to Pearl Abyss to comment on the developing story, and will update once we have received a response.
Last year, a similar situation involving Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 unfolded, in which players discovered AI-created assets has been used as environmental art. Developer Sandfall Interactive later explained that AI-created assets were placed in the game as “temporary placeholder textures,” and that the team forgot to remove all of them during Expedition 33’s QA process. Regardless, Crimson Desert’s Steam page currently does not state that the game used generative AI in the development process, potentially violating Valve’s (arguably lax) AI disclosure guidelines.