It’s official, Activision has sold its soul to the AI overlords

Activision has faced backlash for using AI in promos for its new Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, and Call of Duty mobile games. It comes after fans slammed the game publisher's recent confession, admitting it used AI in its new Call of Duty assets. While suspicions had been circulating for months, it's disappointing to see Activision fully embracing lazy AI imagery with no sign of stopping, despite strong flack from fans.

While there are ways to use AI properly for productivity and enhanced creativity, Activision's sloppy usage demonstrates the less desirable side of the technology. In an industry that's increasingly snubbing the unique talents of creatives, arguably it's hard to see Activision's AI use as anything other than lazy corner-cutting.

Fans first noticed the AI slop on an Instagram promo for Guitar Hero Mobile (a game that isn't even out yet). Featuring a janky image of four guitar players on stage performing for an eerily lifeless crowd of seated fans, the game-inaccurate fretboard displaying the wrong button colours is the cherry on top, suggesting the design was created with little attention to detail.

Fans didn't hold back their criticisms, with one writing "Wow. It appears they're still using Midjourney 1.0. I haven't seen AI art this bad since the early days." Another added, "Too cheap to hire an artist? Too cheap to even use a decent AI art generator even," another added. "If you can't be bothered to make proper artwork for your announcement then I've less than zero faith the game will be any good," a third scathingly wrote.

Similarly schlocky AI ads were found promoting the (also currently fictional) games Call of Duty: Zombie Defender and Crash Bandicoot: Brawl. According to 80.lvl, the fake promos were created to gauge interest from fans, but with uninspired design and sloppy attention to detail, it's not giving gamers much faith in the future of Activision's games.

As a huge fan of Activision's early 2000s gaming legacy (Guitar Hero III, I'm looking at you), it's disappointing to see the company slump into sloppy AI usage. Whether we like it or not AI technology is permeating all industries, the least we can hope for is it won't be quite so blatant. It's not just Activision that's embracing the new technology, EA's also going all in on AI for video game design, but with artists standing up for their rights against AI threats, there's still time to reshape the industry for the better.