Crimson Desert is, in many ways, exactly the type of game I’ve been waiting for.
It’s got the enormous, sprawling setting of, say, an Assassin’s Creed title, minus the laundry list of quests that often cause me to burn out on Ubisoft’s massive open-world games. It encourages freedom and experimentation much in the same way as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but with a more consistent narrative drip-feed that keeps me coming back for more. Sure, it starts off a bit slow, but so far, it’s largely been a fun ride. In fact, Crimson Desert is probably the best game I’ve played so far in 2026. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the little twinge of doubt in the back of my mind that tingles every time I load up the game and leaves me wondering, “Is this AI?”
A large part of the discourse surrounding Crimson Desert has been a fairly black-and-white discussion about whether the game is “good.” If all gaming discourse took place in a vacuum, I’d say it’s a pretty solid 7/10 RPG. But we don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a world where studios are increasingly outsourcing their work to generative AI and refusing to disclose it. Developer Pearl Abyss did just that with Crimson Desert, releasing the game on March 19, despite the fact that it was unpolished and featured a frustrating storage system, a bizarre control setup, and blurry graphics on PlayStation 5. Oh, and a load of AI-generated “placeholder” art that was “unintentionally” left in the game.
Now, as I explore Crimson Desert’s world of Pywel, I constantly find myself subconsciously hunting for signs of AI. Was that a graphical glitch, or remnants of an AI-generated asset? Was that just an oddly worded line of dialogue, or is it evidence that some AI-generated “placeholder dialogue” was left in the game? By this point, I’m sure that by now, Pearl Abyss has scrubbed all remnants of AI from Crimson Desert, but that doesn’t stop me from wondering if there’s more. What it really boils down to is that I struggle to appreciate what I’ve been told is a beautiful, handcrafted world when there’s evidence floating around that at least some parts of it were not, in fact, hand-crafted.
Once players started noticing these obviously AI-generated assets, Pearl Abyss quickly removed them from the game and added an AI use disclosure to its Steam page. And that, it seems, was the end of that. With the AI-generated assets gone, Crimson Desert discourse has largely returned to debates over the quality of the game: “Is it good? Is it bad? Should I play it? Is it GOTY material?” It feels like I’m in the minority by daring to ask how this AI scandal happened, and even caring that it happened to begin with.
According to Pearl Abyss, it was just an oversight–placeholder art was generated to temporarily fill out the game, and Pearl Abyss forgot to remove a few instances of it. Whoops! In a post on X, the studio apologized for its “lack of transparency” in not disclosing the inclusion of AI-generated assets in its game, and says it is conducting a “comprehensive audit” to make sure all of it is removed.
That’s nice and all, but it still doesn’t explain why this happened. Why did Pearl Abyss need to use generative AI to create horrific placeholder art of six-legged horses? I think we all know the answer: It’s quick, it’s easy, and most importantly, it’s free–or a hell of a lot cheaper than paying a human to do it, anyway. Sure, gen-AI works by drawing from the stolen content of artists, writers, and other creatives. Yes, it spits out god-awful images that aren’t worth the drinking water that was wasted to create them. But it allows studios to avoid paying a concept artist to create placeholder art, and when your only concern is the bottom line, I guess that counts as a win. Why wouldn’t Pearl Abyss see it that way, when both players and the industry at large have made it clear that not only do they not give a damn about gen-AI in games, they’re willing to overlook and even reward it?
Take, for example, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. By most accounts, Sandfall Interactive’s debut title was the best game of 2025. It earned a record-breaking 12 nominations at last year’s The Game Awards–the most nominations for a single game in the awards show’s history, surpassing previous record-holder The Last of Us Part II. Of those 12 nominations, Clair Obscur won nine awards, beating out Hollow Knight: Silksong for Best Indie Game. Hell, it was even our Game of the Year here at GameSpot last year.
But then, after winning both Indie Game of the Year and Best Debut Game at December’s Indie Game Awards, Clair Obscur had both awards revoked due to Sandfall’s admission of generative AI use.
“When it was submitted for consideration, representatives of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33,” The Indie Game Awards shared in an official statement. “In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of gen-AI on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination.”
Just like Pearl Abyss, Sandfall Interactive claimed that it had only used generative AI for temporary placeholder assets that were “accidentally” left in the game and were quickly removed once players started noticing them. Just like Pearl Abyss, Sandfall Interactive did not disclose its use of generative AI until after it had been caught red-handed. And just like with Crimson Desert, both the games industry and players seem to have quickly forgotten about the whole ordeal. While The Indie Game Awards was willing to take a hard-line stance on the issue, Clair Obscur didn’t lose any of its awards from other ceremonies. In fact, it just snagged another 12 nominations for the upcoming 22nd Annual BAFTA Games Awards, yet again earning more nominations than any other nominee.
What kind of message does it send to players and game studios when a developer can release a game, swear up, down, left, right, and center that it contains no AI, get caught lying when AI-generated assets are discovered, claim it was “just an accident,” and still earn endless nominations, awards, and other accolades?
I don’t care if it was an accident. Generative AI has no place in gaming. It steals from visual artists, writers, musicians, and other creatives. It destroys the planet. It tarnishes the reputations of the developers who worked on the game (whether they personally used AI or not). Is all of that really worth it for some god-awful “placeholder” images of eight-legged horses? I reckon these, “Oops, we forgot to remove the AI assets!” instances would decrease significantly if developers used standard placeholder textures that actually stand out. A bright, checkered, Garry’s Mod-esque missing texture pattern would surely make it easier to avoid accidentally leaving AI-generated assets in one’s game. In fact, it would remove the need for AI-generated placeholders in the first place.
Regardless of how they end up in a game, generating AI assets is terrible for the planet, and most LLMs are built from visual and written data taken from the internet without the consent of its creators. (This is why half the people I encounter online now think I’m a robot when I use an em-dash.)
Speaking of training data, Baldur’s Gate 3–a game with zero generative AI use–won Game of the Year in 2023, but apparently taught its developer nothing. Larian Studios recently admitted plans to use generative AI on its upcoming project, Divinity. It later walked these claims back, promising generative AI wouldn’t be used for concept art specifically, but asserting it would be using AI for certain aspects of development.
“The important bit to note is that we will not generate ‘creative assets’ that end up in a game without being 100% sure about the origins of the training data and the consent of those who created the data,” Larian CEO Sven Vincke said in a recent Reddit AMA. “If we use a GenAI model to create in-game assets, then it’ll be trained on data we own.”
Okay, lovely, you are not using stolen content. Bully for you. Generative AI is still sucking up our drinking water and electricity, something the industry seems content to ignore. But it’s not just the industry–according to a recent survey, players generally don’t care about the use of generative AI in games, either. Despite some temporary backlash, in the end it feels as though both the gaming industry and players themselves have collectively decided to look the other way when it comes to games companies that are willing to steal art and damage the environment to save a few minutes or dollars on game development.
I’m not alone in my feeling that a drop of AI poisons the well. GameSpot’s Mark Delaney recently wrote about his moral conundrum with Arc Raiders. It’s a game he enjoys, but Embark Studios CEO Patrick Söderlund recently talked about how the game was made at a fraction of the cost thanks to AI.
That’s nice for executives, but it’s not fair to studios who are working on things without AI’s helping hand. Steam has implemented an AI use disclosure requirement (which, as previously mentioned, both Clair Obscur and Crimson Desert failed to abide by until caught), but beyond that, I think it’s unfair for a game made with generative AI to go up against a game made without it when competing for an award. The team behind The Indie Game Awards certainly appears to agree, but it feels like few others in the industry are willing to draw a hard line against AI.
To date, Crimson Desert has made over 2 million sales. It–like Arc Raiders and Clair Obscur–is a fun game. But no matter how much I enjoy it, I can’t fully immerse myself, as I can’t help but wonder, “What if it wasn’t just temporary assets? What if there’s more AI?” Because for me, even a hint of AI is enough to hinder my enjoyment of a game, the same way even a drop of poison is enough to put me off my wine.
