In a special end-of-year letter penned by Square Enix CEO Takashi Kiryu, who took the position of big boss in June 2023, doubled down on the company’s intent on using AI in its future games.
The letter is a surprisingly lengthy document that covers all manner of topics, including plans to continue developing blockchain-based products which the company previously stated in its 2022 end-of-the-year letter.
But the paragraph that has drawn the most attention discussed the use of AI moving forward. Mr. Kiryu said: â€We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions. In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities.â€
The use of AI has, of course, become a hot topic. While it has been discussed for many years, the speedy rise of chatGPT and other easily accessible generative AI has resulted in almost everyone now having an opinion about what AI may mean for the future, where and when it should be used and whether it could do significant damage to the economy as people struggle to find work in an AI dominated world. While it doesn’t seem like AI is going to take over the world like Skynet, it’s certainly changing the landscape.
It’s very noticeable in gaming where AI can be used in seemingly endless ways, from writing to level design to QA testing to voice acting.
Square Enix’s intent on aggressively pushing AI will undoubtedly prove controversial. With that said, as a business, they almost have to: any new avenue that could prove to be the next major change in the market has to be explored lest that company fall behind. It’s like Sony’s recent desire to push into the live-service market: whether you like that style of game or not, it makes sense for them to at least explore the potential.
“I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape what we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming,†Kiryu said.
Exactly what this means in terms of games though, is a mystery for now. However, there is a reasonable example of what it has already been used for in the form of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The game made heavy use of AI to control what sort of facial expressions made, lip-syncing and even the camera. The technology was built during almost the entire development of Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Another example comes from Ubisoft who are now using AI to do things like generate dialogue for background NPCS.
