AI is the elephant in pretty much every room these days, but with gaming we're seeing developers little and large make use of generative AI in order to cut costs, speed up development time, or just test out how the technology can help them. It's a pretty unpopular move, by the internet's standards, but it is something that is considered the "new norm" by a lot of companies.
The Coalition, the developers of Gears of War: E-Day, is not one of those companies, as its creative director Matt Searcy confirmed to IGN that no generative AI was used in the game's development. "We have a kickass concept art team, and our art book is going to rock," Searcy said.
The Coalition has been hard at work to make sure that the Gears of War people know and love isn't taken over by a machine's interpretation of the franchise. The developers have spent years listing every lore detail and bit of the canon to try and respect it as much as possible, and even if E-Day might play around with some moments, it only shifts where they're located, rather than the events themselves.