Blizzard may be planning a future where AI plays a critical role in designing art and characters for their multiplayer games. The news comes from an internal email which The New York Times received, where chief design officer Allen Adham said the company will use “Blizzard Diffusion” to generate ideas.
The email from Adham was reportedly sent in early 2023. Whether Blizzard’s plans have changed since then is uncertain.
At the time, these plans reportedly ranged from concept art for environments and NPCs to clothing options. Adham also mentioned plans to use AI for voice cloning, game coding and “anti-toxicity,” along with the possibility of creating “autonomous, intelligent, in-game NPCs [and] procedurally assisted level design.”
How robust these AI creations would be and what effect these functions may have on existing staff members, the email apparently didn’t mention. Since 2022, two of Activision Blizzard’s studios have successfully formed unions, though only for QA departments – not design.
Blizzard isn’t the first entity in games to push for more AI involvement in development. Ubisoft announced a scheme to help write dialogue using AI, while Riot and Ubisoft are implementing new AI technology to help combat toxicity and hate in online games.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF