Generative AI has been a very contentious issue over the last few years in the game industry, and as more and more developers make use of the technology, it’s becoming more difficult to know just what was created by a human being. Next year’s Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will indeed make use of generative AI, but Crystal Dynamics wants players to know there is one area it was not used: the design of Lara Croft herself.
Speaking to GameSpot at Summer Game Fest, experience director Jeff Adams clarified if generative AI was used in the creation of Lara.
“No. Lara is 100% human-crafted,” Adams said.
This answer came shortly after our interview had initially concluded. We had already asked this question, but were initially told that team was not ready to discuss Lara’s design. We were told the above in much-more-certain terms afterward.
Elsewhere, it sounds like AI is going to be used for concept art and placeholder assets–how this affects the human beings who would usually do this sort of work is not entirely clear.
“At Crystal Dynamics, we see AI as a tool that our teams can use to get to a right answer fast. What that might look like in practice, is, say in early-level development we have an idea for an in-game object but we’re not sure if we want to task the team with building it at that time. We can use a generative AI tool to quickly visualize what that object would look like in the world. And if we’re like, ‘Hey, that works,’ we’ll then move it into ur traditional pipeline.”
Adams added that once the final product is built, the team makes sure all final content is human-created. But the threat of job loss is certainly hanging over the heads of Crystal Dynamics employees, as several major layoffs have hit the studio over the last few years.
Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis launches for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC in 2027.