Bethesda Game Studios' Head and game director for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series (as well as Starfield), Todd Howard, recently chimed in on the hottest topic across most industries: the usage of AI.
Eurogamer interviewed Howard during a preview event for the second season of Fallout's Amazon Prime Video show, which starts airing on Wednesday, December 17. On that occasion, the veteran developer mused that AI is effectively a tool that can make development go faster, but it won't replace the human intention, which is what really makes Bethesda's games (and great games in general) special.
I view it as a tool. Creative intention comes from human artists, number one. But, I think we look at it as a tool for, is there a way we can use it to help us go through some iterations that we do ourselves faster. Not in generating things, but we are always working on our toolset for how we build our worlds or check things.
I think if you go back 10 years ago, that version of Photoshop, you wouldn't want to go back to that version of Photoshop. That's our view on it. But we want to protect the artistry. The human intention of it is what makes our stuff special.
It's a similar view to that of fellow games industry legend Hideo Kojima, who recently claimed to consider AI as a 'friend' that could perform tedious tasks, thereby boosting efficiency, while he and the rest of his team at Kojima Productions focus on creative tasks.
Efficiency is definitely among the top priorities of large, triple-A game developers and publishers nowadays. With the continuous rise of budgets, AI is seen as an essential tool to reduce costs. Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson previously stated that efficiency, expansion, and transformation are the three key areas of innovation that AI amplifies. However, as noted by Todd Howard, its application cannot come at the expense of human creativity.
As a side note, Eurogamer also asked Howard about his game of the year, and the Elder Scrolls and Fallout director joined the chorus of creatives and executives who voted for Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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