Divinity: Larian Studios admitting generative AI use has broken the internet

Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke reportedly saying generative AI (artificial intelligence) has been used in the development of Divinity has broken the internet.

Divinity is an upcoming turn-based role-playing game from the developer of Baldur's Gate 3 which was revealed at The Game Awards 2025.

The studio has reportedly said the game will be similar in approach to what's widely considered to be one of the best games of all time but Divinity will be Larian's biggest game to date.

In an interview with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, it's reported Vincke has been pushing the use of generative AI but there will not be any AI-generated content in Divinity. Vincke said creators use it to explore ideas, develop concept art and write placeholder text.

"I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we're using it," Vincke said after revealing there was some pushback to it at Larian.

Although Divinity itself will not feature any generative AI, there has been a huge backlash to it on social media.

One said: "The Divinity hype was so short lived it felt exactly like this gif."

Another posted: "Larian on a random Tuesday: time to burn years of good PR and fan goodwill."

"'The concept phase' is the absolute worst time to be using generative AI," one posted. "You're poisoning your creation at the root, you're immediately limiting your vision. Why on Earth would you ever do that???"

"I'm frankly disappointed and disgusted that Sven would poison a passion project with this filth," one posted. "I was excited for Divinity, now I can't justify buying it."

Another said: "Oh BOOOOO genuinely why tho? Sending love to every artist who was pushing back on this bulls***."

There are some who have leapt to the defence of Larian, with one saying: "If I speak about the Larian situation I may upset some of you but there are people who really need to study the topic before speaking, learn the differences between AI slop and use cases where it can actually help, stages where it can speed up workflow. Not always black and white."

And a second agreed: "How are you going to drag Larian for minimal AI tool use when games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon Age: Veilguard used them too? Larian has been crystal clear about how they use AI: to make their staff's jobs more manageable. The opinion-flipping depending on the wind is infuriating - especially when it's this loud and this ignorant."

The backlash has been that widespread, Vincke addressed it in a post on X / Twitter.

Sharing a Gamespot article from April where he told the publication AI is used to do the "tasks nobody wants to do", Vincke said: "Holy f*** guys we're not 'pushing hard' for or replacing concept artists with AI.

"We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I'm very proud of what they do.

"I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn't say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.

"We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use Google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.

"We've hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier."

Schreier has since posted the transcript from the relevant section of his interview with Vickne "so people can see all the context and judge for themselves".

Elsewhere from indy100:

• The Game Awards 2025: Every trailer and announcement unveiled at event
• Baldur's Gate 3 devs drop huge tease in emotional final game update

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