Former Battlefield Boss Says Video Games ‘Can’t Be Built by an Al’

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Patrick Söderlund is a highly experienced leader in the video game industry. He previously served as CEO of DICE, the studio behind Battlefield, and as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Studios at Electronic Arts. With this background, he has a deep understanding of what it takes to create successful and engaging games.

Söderlund leads Embark Studios, the team behind the popular online shooter, The Finals. They’re also getting ready to launch Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter that’s generating a lot of buzz, and we’re excited about it too.

Despite successfully marketing its games – especially impressive for a smaller studio – Embark faced criticism after releasing The Finals because it used artificial intelligence to create some of the voices in the game.

Now, it’s not surprising that most interviews with Söderlund center around this issue.

In a recent interview with EDGE magazine (as reported by Games Radar), Embark’s CEO stated his strong opinion on who he believes should be developing video games in the years to come.

What makes videogames special, like all art, is that they currently require human creativity – and I hope that remains true. The human touch is still what truly matters.

However, this doesn’t indicate Söderlund now opposes AI altogether. He hasn’t completely changed his stance.

In the same interview, he excitedly described a future feature for The Finals where players could design new weapons by simply showing a video of the weapon they want. The game’s system would then use that video to automatically create a 3D model of it.

Söderlund believes AI can help creatives work faster, but emphasizes it won’t replace human involvement.

You might think this sounds crazy, but I’m not focused on making things ten times faster – I want us to create content a hundred times faster. Aiming for a 10x improvement is manageable and allows for small adjustments, but if you truly want 100x speed, you need to completely rethink everything you currently do.

He’s not the only one exploring AI! Gaming giant EA has partnered with Stability AI to create new AI tools and processes. This collaboration aims to help EA’s creative teams revolutionize game development.

Despite the hype around AI, some tools aren’t living up to expectations. Employees at EA have reportedly found their company’s internal chatbot is actually increasing their workload instead of simplifying it.

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2025-10-27 18:37