{"id":22693,"date":"2025-07-26T03:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22693\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T03:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T03:46:11","slug":"dev-insists-a-glossed-up-version-of-daggerfalls-aesthetic-was-invented-by-ai-which-is-a-bit-like-saying-i-can-invent-a-new-plane-by-drawing-a-picture-of-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22693\/","title":{"rendered":"Dev insists a glossed-up version of Daggerfall&#8217;s aesthetic was &#8216;invented&#8217; by AI, which is a bit like saying I can invent a new plane by drawing a picture of one"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I normally wouldn&#8217;t inform you of a public slapfight between a developer and X users, but unfortunately, given the absolute fury-storm surrounding generative AI technology, and the fact this whole debacle&#8217;s an illustrative point as to why all conversations surrounding it are tainted by ragebait, my hands are tied.<\/p>\n<p>Tim Soret\u2014who got in deep water after espousing <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/e3\/2017\/6\/12\/15780174\/the-last-night-twitter-history-gamergate\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/e3\/2017\/6\/12\/15780174\/the-last-night-twitter-history-gamergate\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">support for GamerGate<\/a> years ago, then backtracked, then <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-last-night-to-make-a-comeback-in-2022-says-developer\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-last-night-to-make-a-comeback-in-2022-says-developer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">promised a comeback of his game The Last Night in 2021<\/a> (you will observe it is now 2025)\u2014has repeatedly and emphatically stated on Twitter that the first ever known novel invention of AI occurred: <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/timsoret\/status\/1947379899242623044\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/x.com\/timsoret\/status\/1947379899242623044\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow\">A somewhat-pretty generation<\/a> that looks like a dressed-up version of Daggerfall.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Interesting to see the praise for this AI-invented visual style. Everybody wants it, and indie devs are rushing to prototype it &amp; make it real. https:\/\/t.co\/rASfMaZpxM<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/1947379899242623044\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/1947379899242623044\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">July 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If no human has ever produced this particular blend of techniques before, then yes it has just been invented,&#8221; Soret goes on to insist in a chain of increasingly agitated comments, adding that he did the same thing <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/timsoret\/status\/1947410250677817676\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/x.com\/timsoret\/status\/1947410250677817676\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow\">with The Last Night<\/a> back in 2017. I want to point out, in the gentlest way possible, that Octopath Traveller was also <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/videos\/project-octopath-traveler-official-announcement-trailer\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.ign.com\/videos\/project-octopath-traveler-official-announcement-trailer\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced in the same year<\/a>\u2014and games take years to develop. Sometimes ideas happen in parallel, and it&#8217;s nobody&#8217;s fault.<\/p>\n<p>Related articles<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, Soret&#8217;s general misunderstandings about how AI actually functions is a decent cautionary tale to not allow the jangling keys of generated work fool you. Especially when they involve getting into arguments on X\u2014anyway.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not stupid enough to sit here and tell you that this generation doesn&#8217;t look cool, but generative <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/new-mit-study-shows-what-you-already-knew-about-ai-it-doesnt-actually-understand-anything\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/new-mit-study-shows-what-you-already-knew-about-ai-it-doesnt-actually-understand-anything\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AI doesn&#8217;t think, for starters<\/a>. Don&#8217;t take my word for it, listen to someone far smarter from MIT, senior paper author Ashesh Rambachan (in the full story I just linked).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We see these models do impressive things and think they must have understood something about the world. I hope we can convince people that this is a question to think very carefully about, and we don\u2019t have to rely on our own intuitions to answer it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, as we&#8217;ve seen in plenty of videogame tech demos, AI can hold on to a 3D environment for about two to three seconds before <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/microsoft-unveils-ai-generated-demo-inspired-by-quake-2-that-runs-worse-than-doom-on-a-calculator-made-me-nauseous-and-demanded-untold-dollars-energy-and-research-to-make\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/microsoft-unveils-ai-generated-demo-inspired-by-quake-2-that-runs-worse-than-doom-on-a-calculator-made-me-nauseous-and-demanded-untold-dollars-energy-and-research-to-make\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it becomes a disturbing, non-Euclidian slurry<\/a>. In particular, when you turn into a dark corner, AI has a hard time remembering the room you were in and will often &#8220;put&#8221; you somewhere completely different the moment you turn back around. This is why the videos Soret is praising are a few seconds long.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, even if you want to argue that this artstyle wasn&#8217;t created in a far more rudimentary form back in the &#8217;90s, the AI hasn&#8217;t actually invented anything because there&#8217;s no way to make it work right now. In the same way that I have not invented a new airplane by drawing a pretty good picture of one. What I have invented is a picture of an airplane.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, human artists had already made pixel art and gothic fantasy. Was the AI the first thing to go &#8216;man, wouldn&#8217;t it be cool if we could do this&#8217;? Well, I&#8217;m almost certainly sure not. At the bare minimum, that was the person who promoted it to cook these videos up\u2014and that&#8217;s giving them a lot of credit.<\/p>\n<p>So, are these videos valuable as a baseline concept for actual development? Well, kinda, maybe? By far the most frustrating thing about generative AI (aside from the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/report-estimates-ai-energy-demands-will-quadruple-in-the-next-few-years-with-some-large-planned-centres-estimated-to-use-the-equivalent-power-of-5-000-000-households\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/report-estimates-ai-energy-demands-will-quadruple-in-the-next-few-years-with-some-large-planned-centres-estimated-to-use-the-equivalent-power-of-5-000-000-households\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">catastrophic climate concerns<\/a>, or reckless layoffs in favour of pushing tech that isn&#8217;t fit for purpose yet) is the fact that the actually-useful applications get drowned out in a sea of justifiable outrage.<\/p>\n<p>Machine learning isn&#8217;t the devil, people are. <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/gaming-industry\/game-development\/larians-swen-vincke-says-ai-obsessed-studios-wont-have-a-competitive-advantage-because-those-tools-are-gonna-be-whats-available-to-everybody\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/gaming-industry\/game-development\/larians-swen-vincke-says-ai-obsessed-studios-wont-have-a-competitive-advantage-because-those-tools-are-gonna-be-whats-available-to-everybody\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Larian&#8217;s using AI for testing human ideas<\/a> before then moving on to actually making stuff by hand, or heck, back in 2018, Into the Spiderverse used a deep learning model to help artists draw and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fxguide.com\/fxfeatured\/ink-lines-and-machine-learning\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.fxguide.com\/fxfeatured\/ink-lines-and-machine-learning\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">its comic book lines<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The videos linked by Soret are, at best, an interesting proof-of-concept that I&#8217;d like to see actual artists, and game developers, produce something similar to some day. Complete with actual intent, vistas framed by people who understand environment design, and I dunno, maybe an actual game mechanic or two. Something more than just vibes.<\/p>\n<p>But no, either AI has to be the <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/googles-ai-visionary-says-well-expand-intelligence-a-millionfold-by-2045-thanks-to-nanobots-the-tech-will-resurrect-the-dead-and-were-all-going-to-live-forever\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/googles-ai-visionary-says-well-expand-intelligence-a-millionfold-by-2045-thanks-to-nanobots-the-tech-will-resurrect-the-dead-and-were-all-going-to-live-forever\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">next coming of techno-Christ<\/a>, or mercilessly used to try and <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/ubisoft-shows-off-ai-powered-neo-npcs-at-gdc-it-could-be-the-start-of-a-fantastic-paradigm-shift-but-lets-be-honest-it-probably-wont\/\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/ubisoft-shows-off-ai-powered-neo-npcs-at-gdc-it-could-be-the-start-of-a-fantastic-paradigm-shift-but-lets-be-honest-it-probably-wont\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rinse all human creation out of videogames<\/a>. Soret cannot simply say &#8220;this looks cool, let&#8217;s talk about how we could actually make it&#8221;\u2014he has to praise the divine gifts of the Omnissiah and argue that programs MIT says can&#8217;t think, in fact, do. I&#8217;m very tired.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cDuR8WTcwKZUDqDb7coa2a.jpg\" alt=\"Asus RX 9070 Prime graphics card\"   class=\"person__avatar image-wrapped__image image__image\" loading=\"lazy\" data-normal=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cDuR8WTcwKZUDqDb7coa2a.jpg\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cDuR8WTcwKZUDqDb7coa2a.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/cDuR8WTcwKZUDqDb7coa2a.jpg\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" data-slice-image=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Best graphics card 2025<\/p>\n<p>All our current recommendations<br \/>\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I normally wouldn&#8217;t inform you of a public slapfight between a developer and X users, but unfortunately, given&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-22693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}