Studio Atelico has unveiled its debut game, Bobium Brawlers, a card battler that actively uses artificial intelligence. The project is being developed primarily for mobile devices and will first launch on iOS by the end of 2026.
The key feature of Bobium Brawlers is that players will be able to create creatures for their deck simply by describing them in words. This is powered by the studio's proprietary Atelico AI Engine, which runs not in the cloud but directly on the device. This approach ensures privacy, low latency, and no additional costs. Because of this, the game will only be available on devices with relatively recent versions of the Neural Engine — presumably starting with the iPhone 13.
Studio Atelico uses a hybrid approach: the development involves a team of artists who created an extensive set of visual assets to train the model. These images were manually matched with text descriptions so that the AI could correctly generate new creatures within the defined style.
Studio Atelico also places special emphasis on its ethical stance. Artists were paid for developing the visual style and most of the non-game art, and they also continue to receive royalties for creatures generated in the game based on their training materials.
Studio CEO and co-founder Piero Molino noted that he understands the reasons behind the gaming community's distrust of AI. According to him, players are not so much opposed to AI itself as they are to "slop" and the exploitation of people that often accompanies the introduction of the technology. Molino emphasized that Studio Atelico deliberately chose a different path — paying artists for their work and providing royalty payments.