‘We Should Have Clearly Disclosed Our Use of AI’: Crimson Desert Dev ‘Sincerely Apologises’ for Erroneously Including AI Art in PS5 Game

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Pearl Abyss, the developer of Crimson Desert, has issued an apology after it was found that the game, a large open-world title for PlayStation 5, used AI-generated assets.

The company recently posted on X (formerly Twitter) that it used the AI technology to experiment with different styles and moods, but its plan was always to ultimately create the final artwork itself.

This week, Reddit users discovered that the finished game includes several images and other assets that were obviously made using AI. It appears these were likely created with an older version of the AI technology.

The studio has apologized for the mistake and plans to release an update that will fix the problematic elements.

We’ve included its full statement below:

We would like to address questions regarding the use of AI in Crimson Desert.

We experimented with AI tools to quickly create some initial 2D visuals during the early stages of development. These helped us explore the overall look and feel of the project. However, we always planned to replace these AI-generated assets with final artwork created by our artists and developers, ensuring everything met our quality and creative goals.

We’ve discovered that some items were mistakenly added to the recent release, based on feedback from our community. This doesn’t meet our quality standards, and we apologize for the error.

Okay, so I messed up and we should have been upfront about using AI tools in the game’s development. We initially used them mostly in the early stages, planning to swap out those assets later, but that doesn’t really matter. We still should have told everyone we were using them, and I take responsibility for not doing that.

We sincerely apologize for these oversights.

We’re carefully checking all in-game items and replacing anything that needs updating. These changes will be released in future game updates. At the same time, we’re improving how we work internally and how we communicate with you to be more open and consistent.

AI can be helpful in many work processes, but generative AI is getting a bad rap because it learns from artists without giving them credit. This creates ethical concerns, even though the legal issues are still unclear.

Simply put, the artwork in this game isn’t good. A lot of it doesn’t make sense and should have been updated before the game came out.

We recognize that Crimson Desert’s large scope likely made it challenging to identify all errors, but avoiding generative AI altogether might have been a more straightforward approach.

It’s positive that Pearl Abyss acknowledged the issue, offered an apology, and committed to releasing a fix. They’re also working on making the game’s controls more user-friendly as soon as they can.

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2026-03-22 18:07