Activision admits it: Call of Duty uses generative AI in its latest release

Now that Steam is forcing the issue on games released on the platform, the secret is out.

When we talk about the use or otherwise of AI in video games, we often tend to think of its contribution as being solely focused on the behaviour of NPCs in the game, but it's clear that the recent push for the technology is more towards the creative side, replacing human labour (artistic or otherwise) with something created by a trained algorithm. Valve has long had a stance of at least transparency in this regard, and in one of the recent updates to Steam's publishing rules required all games to publish on their shop page whether or not and to what extent they had made use of AI in their development. And today we have learned of the most blatant and probably the most talked about case in this regard.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the latest instalment in Activision's flagship series and one of the most powerful and lucrative franchises in the entire industry, now has to admit that paste of its game assets - modelling and otherwise - have been created using generative AI. Whatever anyone may think about this, the decision has come as little surprise to players of the series, who have been suspecting it since even before the game's release.

What is somewhat difficult to understand is that the publisher has deliberately avoided telling the truth about this for so long, and that it had to be forced by community standards, and not as a matter of transparency with its players.

What do you think about the use of generative AI in billion-dollar video game franchises?