It’s been a little over a week since we learned that Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis will have been partially built with Generative AI technology by developer Crystal Dynamics. That fact hasn’t left the news cycle all week, so it’s a little troubling when a recent interview with the game’s experience director, Jeff Adams, seems to fail to justify why Gen AI was so important.
In a clip posted by Game Informer on social media, Adams is asked about the extent that AI was used in Legacy of Atlantis, and he responds, “At Crystal Dynamics, we see AI as a tool that can help our team get to right answers faster.” He then concocts a scenario where the dev team might want to iterate on an idea like moving a block, but isn’t sure if they want to spend the dev time testing that. “We can use a generative AI tool to help us visualize that object in the world,” Adams explains. “And if it works, we’ll then move it to our traditional pipeline.”
Stressing that everything from that point on would be “human-crafted,” Adams’ response is followed up by Game Informer with the question, “And so when you drag that generative piece into the engine, does it have scripts attached to it? Or is it an environmental art tool in that procedure? What’s that look like?” Surprisingly, PR then interjects to cut Adams off and steer him away from answering.
To their credit, the PR rep isn’t agitated or causing a ruckus, but the response is pretty damning. “I think what I’d probably say is I think we’ve said all we want to say about it now. Once the game comes out and everyone can see how amazing it is, we’d probably be more comfortable,” they stated. “I think in this early moment, I just wouldn’t want us to like start talking about that.”
It’s not entirely uncommon for PR reps to shut down certain lines of questioning during interviews, especially if they relate to NDAed topics or general spoilers for a game’s narrative. An instance like this, though, where a genuine question is being asked is pretty astonishing. People are rightly concerned about the usage of Gen AI in Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, and trying to distract from that in such a blatant manner isn’t the right way to go about things.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
