A new animation series for the smash hit franchise Evangelion was announced recently, and it is being led by none other than Yoko Taro, the mind behind Nier Automata.
To celebrate the occasion, Stellar Blade director Kim Hyung Tae recently took to Twitter and shared an artwork to congratulate Yoko Taro on the announcement. However, the Stellar Blade director chose to use an AI-generated image for his social media post.
Soon enough, this post became the center of controversy, with many criticizing the game director. In fact, a prominent Nier Automata developer also joined the discussion and called out Kim Hyung Tae for using AI art.
The Stellar Blade director’s recent post on Twitter features Evangelion lead Asuka Langley and numerous Emil heads from Nier Automata.
This post garnered several negative responses in no time, with many criticizing the artist for using AI despite being capable of producing much higher quality work himself. For context, director Kim Hyung Tae had shared a similar hand-drawn artwork to mark the occasion prior to this post.
In the replies, many called the artwork ‘soulless’ and ‘boring.’ Some also stated that they were disappointed by the director’s push for AI after being impressed by his work on Stellar Blade in the past. The fan responses aside, things took a turn for the worse when Nier Automata modeler Yoshikaze Matsushita joined the conversation.
Yoshikaze Matsushita called out Kim Hyung Tae with a response indicating that he wasn’t too happy with the use of his work for AI artwork. Later, he also noted that the Stellar Blade director had blocked him on the platform.
In the responses, the modeller even went as far as to say that he would not play future games from Shift Up due to the company’s push for artificial intelligence. He admitted that director Kim Hyung Tae’s work is otherwise solid, but the use of AI cannot be justified.
The Stellar Blade director later clarified that he did not block the Nier Automata developer on purpose, blaming a malfunction within ‘Blue Blocker’ for the incident. Regardless, it seems the developer’s use of AI did not go over well with most of his audience and industry peers.
For context, Shift Up previously deemed AI necessary to compete with others in the gaming industry. As the studio works on Stellar Blade 2 and other titles, AI is basically confirmed to play a role in the development of these projects.
