With the rise of AI in the tech industry in recent years — generative AI, in particular — it's hardly a surprise that its use in gaming has quickly become a hot-button issue. Just a few months ago, Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios came under fire for revealing it uses generative AI for ideation for its upcoming RPG Divinity, and many game dev executives like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's director have weighed in on the topic.
In December, Todd Howard — the executive producer and game director at The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield developer Bethesda — shared his thoughts on AI, explaining that he views it as a tool that can and should be used to aid the development process instead of replace human art and creativity. Now, he's further elaborated on what he means.
"Look, it's certainly not a fad. The AI answer now becomes, 'ask me in six months,' right? It changes so much what you're seeing out there. For us, we're being incredibly cautious, kind of viewing it like a tool, like an analyst. [Using it to] look at the data in our games," Howard told Kinda Funny Games in a recent podcast. "We're not using it to generate anything — there's such an element of artistic intention that is essential to what we do and what others do ... this idea of craftsmen. I still think craftsmen and handcrafted human intention is what makes things special, and that's where we want to be."
Ultimately, Howard and Bethesda as a studio consider human creativity and intention to be extremely important, and say they have no plans to use AI to generate in-game content for its upcoming games. With that said, he does say it has potential to help the developers with "big data tasks."
"But you can't ignore it, in terms of, 'it's coming, it's changing' — every few months there's a new model, particularly in the tech side with code or productivity or other things, and I'll just say we're looking at that stuff," Howard continued. "We're not fully ignoring it because where it can help us get better at some big data tasks that take us a lot of time that we just wish were done now so we can move on to the creative stuff — that's kinda where our heads are. But I think it's still very very early days."
"We just have so much data in our games ... with our own procedural systems, or long-term play analysis, and using those systems to help us with that or validate some things that we're thinking, I think has a lot of use today. But, again, this is something that's changing really rapidly, and we'll see where it goes," he added.
These comments should assuage fears from some players that the next major Starfield update or future games like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 will have AI-generated content in them, which has become an increasingly relevant concern in general with how prominent AI use has become.
As for what you can expect from what's next for Starfield, Howard says it's not "Starfield 2.0," but he thinks "it's the kind of thing where if you love Starfield, we think you're gonna love this." It's thought to be the game's second paid DLC expansion, and more details are "coming soon."
Howard also noted that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be more of a "classic" Bethesda game, and more like the likes of Skyrim and Fallout 4 than Starfield and Fallout 76 were. Basically, you can expect it to forgo exceptionally huge maps or a multiplayer focus in favor of a singular, densely packed open world to explore in single player.
The Elder Scrolls 6 is still "a long ways off," though Howard has previously noted that "the majority of the studio's" now working on the grand fantasy RPG. Whenever it comes out, we know you'll be able to play it on Xbox and PC, and that it will be available on Xbox Game Pass.
Todd Howard takes a firm stance on AI content
These comments make it clear Todd Howard and Bethesda have no interest in using AI-generated content in its games. Are you glad to hear him take this position? Are you worried Bethesda will change its mind at some point? Let me know in the comments.
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