The Finals dev stands by use of AI despite criticism
As the latest free-to-play game to shoot up a storm, The FINALS is everywhere right now. Embark Studios' title takes the larger-than-life aesthetic of Apex Legends, chucks in the destructive gameplay of Rainbow Six, and mixes a dash of Warzone's Plunder mode for good measure.
Launching on December 7, The FINALS is off to a strong start and is currently one of Steam's most-played games. Whether it can hold onto its players or is destined to be just another Hyper Scape remains to be seen. Thankfully, The FINALS seems to be doing all the right things...well, almost all the right things.
The FINALS dev defends its use of AI
Click to enlargeWe understand that AI is important in video games - after all, how would all those NPCs and bots work? Still, the conversation is currently overtaken by the "evils" of AI in terms of replacing actual humans. From writing to voice work, there are worries that AI is putting real-world jobs at risk.
With this in mind, it's probably not the best time for The FINALS to use AI voice actors in its game. This was one of the few complaints of the game's open beta, but instead of listening to fans, it seems Embark Studios is sticking to its AI guns - much to the anger of the community.
In an interview with Game Developer, The FINALS Brand Director Sven Grundberg said, "We saw the discussion happening, and one of the reasons we discussed it from the onset [on the developer podcast] was because we have been super transparent about the use of AI-based TTS (text-to-speech) in the game.
"One thing that we want to make really clear in terms of how we use those tools in The Finals is that we use a combination of recorded voice actors and AI based TTS that is based on contracted voice actors," said Grundberg. "We don"t generate voice and video from thin air."
AI isn't going anywhere
Click to enlargeAccording to Grundberg, AI tools allowed the small team at Embark to create a game on a larger scale. Continuing to defend AI, he said, "I think with these new tools, they're not going to go away. The important thing for us is to be transparent about the way we use them. That's the context we want to provide, going forward."
Comparing a shift into AI to the change from 2D to 3D games is a divisive comment, namely because jobs weren't at risk from these advancements. Still, he reiterated Embark isn't trying to replace voice actors: "We use a bunch of voice actors for our game, they come in to record, and we're always happy with their work."
Saying how "these new tools allow us to do things that we couldn't do before outside of our means," it doesn't sound like Embark is about to do a U-turn on its use of AI. Whether that will continue to be a cause for concern or we'll all have forgotten about it in a week remains to be seen.
