Blizzard Entertainment recently faced criticism on social media regarding the descriptions of new zones in the World of Warcraft: Midnight expansion. Reddit users noticed the frequent use of the words "mystery" and "secrets," leading to suspicions of AI usage, although there was no official confirmation at the time.
The company was busy presenting the expansion at Gamescom, but did so without live broadcasts, through influencers, which did not generate much interest.
In an interview, the developers of WoW and Overwatch 2 discussed how they plan to use AI. Gabriel Gonzalez, Principal Visual Artist for WoW, noted that AI helps the team eliminate routine work, freeing up time for creativity. An example is selecting helmets for different races: each character is unique, and manually adjusting helmets is difficult and tedious. AI facilitates the process, allowing them to focus on more important tasks.
However, they do not plan to use AI in creating stories. Maria Hamilton, Deputy Design Director for WoW, emphasized that stories are better received when written by people. AI is only needed to relieve talented employees from monotonous work, such as writing zone descriptions. Overwatch 2 Director Aaron Keller added that AI will gradually be integrated into many tools and processes in the industry.
