The developers of the upcoming System Shock remake have enraged their community by using an image of Shodan made by AI in a tweet to advertise the game. Art generated by artificial intelligence is a sensitive topic these days, and a good part of System Shock fans seem to dislike its use.The development of the System Shock remake has been troubled so far. The game was originally announced back in 2015, had a successful Kickstarter that gained over a million dollars and was expected to be released around 2020. However, several delays happened, and now the PC version of System Shock is going to come out on May 30, with the console version appearing in the following months. So, it’s fair to say that the System Shock community is not happy. Now, however, the developers managed to enrage their customers even more.In a recent tweet, System Shock publisher Prime Matter posted an image of the game's AI villain Shodan made using Midjourney, a popular program for generating AI art. The post seems to have backfired badly, though, as countless fans pointed out how much they disliked the idea. For instance, when looking at the comments, it’s possible to see users like TwistedOverride saying that gamers should abandon their hopes of playing the game, or DigiEXE_, who claimed the post killed their excitement about the title due to unethical use of art. Others, such as DurradonXylles, even affirmed that people who preordered the game were eligible for refunds in case they no longer supported it.
Soon after that, the official profile even had to explain that they were just trying to be “meta” by using AI to create the physical form of an AI, and that it was not about using the technology to replace real artists. So, there was no suggestion that AI art would actually be used in the game, which seemed to be misunderstood by some gamers who were eager to learn more about one of the most awaited sci-fi games of 2023.
The overall reception of AI art by gamers is skeptical, at best, but that does not discourage most gaming companies to keep trying to use it. For instance, Blizzard has recently unveiled a patent to use AI generation in background artwork. The idea is to use machine learning to create a system in which programmers can teach the system how to draw backgrounds in a certain style and generate content with a moderate amount of detail. If it’s actually used, it remains to be seen how fans will react, especially as real-life art could be used to train it.
System Shock will be out on May 30 for PC, and it will come to PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S later in the year.
