Casey Hudson, the gaming industry veteran who is leading the team making Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, has commented on AI, saying he finds it to be “creatively soulless.”
He said this in an interview with Bloomberg, adding, “It’s hard to imagine where it’s actually helpful in the process. I’m just really unimpressed with it.”
Presumably Hudson is referring to generative AI, which has been the hot-button topic as of late, but whatever the case, he is clearly not enthusiastic about the technology for Fate of the Old Republic.
Almost nothing is known about Fate of the Old Republic, but Hudson went on to say he doesn’t plan to make a game that takes 200 hours to finish. He also doesn’t plan to ramp up his studio, Arcanaut, too much.
“Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” Hudson said of Fate of the Old Republic. “If I’m excited about a game and then I find out that it’s 200 hours long–even if I have no ambition to actually finish it–I wonder, if I put 20 hours in, will I even be out of act one? A lot of players just want to play something and finish it.”
In regards to staffing levels at developer Arcanaut, Hudson said, “We really want to avoid having hundreds and hundreds of people.”
It’s also come to light that Fate of the Old Republic is funded in part by a new holding company called GreaterThan Group (GTG). The company has $40 million in funding already and “commitments” for about $60 million more, Bloomberg reported. In addition to helping to fund Fate of the Old Republic, GTG is funding former Call of Duty boss David Vonderhaar’s new game, which hasn’t been announced yet.
Fate of the Old Republic doesn’t have a release date yet, but it should be here by 2030. Billed as a “narrative-driven single-player action RPG,” Fate of the Old Republic will see players take control of a Force-user during a turbulent time of rebirth in the galaxy.