Black Ops 7 has not been doing too well so far. As the successor to one of Call of Duty’s best-selling titles in the modern era, the game seems to have fallen flat on its face. Despite its many positives, it seems fans have found plenty to complain about when it comes to Call of Duty’s latest release.
Aside from the poor campaign, fans have begun complaining about the use of AI-generated content in Black Ops 7. This is only made worse by the fact that the game costs $70, leading to uproar over the usage of AI for art in multiplayer calling cards.
As spotted by Kume on Twitter, Black Ops 7 seems to feature various calling cards in the style of Studio Ghibli’s art. For context, this style of art is very easily and commonly generated by AI, and fans on the post believe Activision has simply used prompts to come up with multiple calling cards in this style.
There is reason to believe that these calling cards feature AI-generated art since the Studio Ghibli style goes against the military and sci-fi themes of Black Ops 7. As such, there seems to be little doubt about the fact that Activision has cut a lot of corners here.
Interestingly, the Steam page for Black Ops 7 also states that the game uses AI-generated content, raising further eyebrows in this context. Also, this is not the first time Activision has used AI for in-game art, as the gaming giant previously faced criticism for using AI to come up with the Zombie Santa loading screen art.
Although using AI for game development is not inherently bad, Activision’s games are sold at a premium $70 price. The company also makes billions of dollars on each Call of Duty release, so there is little reason to cut so many corners.
Apart from Activision, Microsoft has also decided to go all in on AI usage for game development. Therefore, with Activision and Xbox now under one umbrella, it may only be a matter of time before the two expand their artificial intelligence tools for more frequent usage during game development.
