Embark boss insists studio isn’t using AI to replace people in Arc Raiders development

The CEO and founder of Swedish developer Embark Studios, Patrick Söderlund, has said that the company is not using AI as a means of reducing its investment in people.

Speaking to GamesBeat, the executive insisted that games is a “people industry” amid criticism for the firm’s use of artificial intelligence within its suite of releases, most recently the highly popular extraction shooter, Arc Raiders.

“We don’t use artificial intelligence to not have to hire people or replace people or job groups,” he said.

“That’s not the point. We have several voice actors that we work with that are on contract. We work with them continuously and will continue working with them. They are, of course, a central piece of this puzzle. We will pay for their voices, and sometimes using an artificial voice gets us to update the game a lot faster, if we want a change to the game, we can submit it quickly. People need to take a step back and look at this and understand what it is and what it can do. It can be a tremendous help to developers and a tremendous benefit to players.

He continued: “I realise it’s an intricate subject and discussion, but at the same time, it’s never been about replacing people. It’s been about making tedious, sometimes boring, parts of work disappear or be much faster. It’s about putting people’s time where it really makes sense.”

Söderlund pointed to the continued support of Embark’s free-to-play shooter, The Finals, which he said was possible, in part, due to the studio’s use of artificial intelligence.

“We could not have built the games that we’ve built or service the games that we’ve done,” he said.

“The Finals, for example, has been updated every single week once a week since the day we launched it. There have been substantial improvements to the game. We couldn’t have done that without some help from artificial intelligence, but obviously, most importantly through, smart investment in tools and pipelines, technology, and incredible people. This is a people industry. It’s going to be a people industry. I don’t envision games being done automatically by some artificial intelligence. That is not how I look at it.”

When it was released in October, Arc Raiders became the “most successful global launch” in Embark parent company Nexon’s history.