A few weeks into the new year, and there have already been a surprising number of instances of popular game studios boasting their plans of using Generative AI in game development and receiving immense backlash in the process. The latest in line is Cygames, most recently known for its work on Granblue Fantasy: Relink and Umamusume: Pretty Derby, the latter of which won the Best Mobile Game Award at The Game Awards 2025.
The Japan-based studio recently launched Cygames AI Studio, in the hopes of providing developers with safe, secure, and efficient access to AI technology. Naturally, this announcement didn’t sit well with the fans of the studio’s work, prompting the company to issue a public apology on X (formerly Twitter), which only raised more concerns regarding the whole situation.
Cygames’ AI studio apology causes more harm than repair
In its long-winded statement, Cygames discussed the cause of concern over the brief announcement of its new AI studio and how it failed to address the problems and debates that plague Generative AI usage. It further clarified that the art produced by Gen AI has not been used in the studio’s products so far.
What piqued most people’s interest, however, was the next statement, in which the studio promised to provide prior notice before implementing Gen AI into their products. Many found it insinuating and feared that the company might use it to amp up game development in the future, thus affecting the handcrafted and distinctive visual appeal of its upcoming titles.
One X user called the whole situation a “nonsensical PR stunt statement,” while another found the misleading apology utterly confusing.
It’s worth noting that Cygames is currently hiring for an Image Generation AI Specialist, among other AI-related roles, on its official LinkedIn page. While the studio claims to hold artists in the highest regard, the aforementioned job listings and its misleading PR-infused statement seem to suggest otherwise.
As mentioned above, Cygames isn’t the only notable game studio this year to land in hot water on matters of Gen AI. Industry’s current darling, Larian Studios, recently found itself in a similarly perplexing situation, one with a relatively positive outcome.
Fresh off announcing the next Divinity title at The Game Awards 2025, Larian’s founder, Swen Vincke, sat down with Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier to talk all things about the studio’s next big RPG. On Gen AI usage, Vincke revealed how the creators use it to explore ideas for developing concept arts, and how everyone at the company is “more or less” okay with them using it.
Naturally, this led to unprecedented backlash, with Vincke clarifying how the studio is only using it to explore ideas for concept art and not necessarily developing them, while also reassuring that the studio is not pushing to replace its world-class concept artists with AI. Since then, Larian has confirmed that it will refrain from using Gen AI during the concept art development phase of Divinity to avoid future misunderstandings.
With Gen AI seemingly becoming the tool of the future, it’s no surprise that many game studios will eventually learn to rely on it to amp up certain aspects of game development. Final Fantasy publisher Square Enix recently revealed in its business plan that it aims to use gen AI to speed up 70% of QA; a bold but unsurprising move that could be followed up by other notable publishers as well.
Perhaps Cygames’ new AI studio aims to support its developers with similar, less creatively demanding aspects of the game to speed up development. Whatever it may be, fans will have to wait and find out for themselves.
