The use of artificial intelligence is becoming more and more discussed in the gaming industry, with major companies viewing this technology as a way to optimize development and reduce costs. However, not all developers appreciate generative AI—especially when it’s used to do things that their teams are already skilled at.
A member of Obsidian, Brandon Adler, recently spoke about this topic.
Obsidian’s Brandon Adler on AI in Game Development
Speaking on the My Perfect Console podcast (thanks Gamesradar), Adler said that one of the main lessons he learned while directing The Outer Worlds 2 was that “Obsidian should never outsource the things that it’s amazing at, like our quests and ours characters and our stories – those are the things we should keep internal.”
He shared a similar view regarding AI in game development: “You don’t outsource the things you’re good at to AI.” According to Adler, Obsidian has no obligation to use AI. While Microsoft developers are not strictly banned from using AI, they are not required to use it either. Adler emphasized that the team absolutely does not use it for content creation because “that’s just not really even on the table.”
When asked if story-driven single-player games are at risk due to the rise of new technology, Adler replied, “I hope it’s not under threat. As of right now, we pride ourselves at Obsidian on our storytelling, we pride ourselves on our characters, in our world building, and it would be a damn shame for that to go away.”
