Image: Push Square
Sick of seeing those seriously ugly AI-generated paintings in Crimson Desert? If so, we’ve got good news: they’ve been officially replaced.
As part of the game’s latest major update — which dropped over the weekend — developer Pearl Abyss has stripped the title of AI assets. While the change was mentioned in the full patch notes, it’s taken players a little bit of time to confirm that everything’s been sorted.
When Crimson Desert launched just over a week ago, it didn’t take players long at all to spy some clearly AI-generated artwork. Various in-game paintings showed obvious signs of being produced by an AI model, caked in weird geometry and other visual errors.
The Korean studio quickly responded to the criticism, offering a public apology and promising that the assets would be replaced. It claimed that these assets were essentially left over from development, and it never had any intention of letting them appear in the finished release.
It wrote:
“We acknowledge that we should have clearly disclosed our use of AI. While these tools were primarily used during early production, with the expectation that these assets would be replaced prior to release, we recognize that this does not excuse the lack of transparency.
We sincerely apologize for these oversights.”
Here are some examples of the assets in question, and how they’ve been replaced:
🚨 رسمياً: خطوة ممتازة من مطوري Crimson Desert بالتخلص من صور الذكاء الاصطناعي (AI) في التحديث الجديد! 🎨⚔️
الاستوديو استجاب لانتقادات مجتمع اللاعبين وقرر يستبدل صور الـ AI بتصاميم ورسومات فنية يدوية من عمل فريقهم 👏.
أنتم مع أو ضد استخدام الـ AI في تصميم الألعاب؟ 🤔👇… https://t.co/7XLeYedoTj pic.twitter.com/HZZvMD7GUp
— RADAR (@radaregn) March 29, 2026
AI art in Crimson Desert has been removed and replaced with human drawn art, making collecting paintings actually worth it now
Here’s the exact same painting, before and after the update, no more yellow slop: pic.twitter.com/74bzFQTlLu
— Synth Potato🥔 (@SynthPotato) March 29, 2026
Crimson Desert is, of course, an utterly gigantic open world game — and so the presence of AI-generated assets didn’t damage the title’s reputation to any notable degree.
But this has been another reminder of the reality that we currently find ourselves in. Placeholder assets generated by AI have become commonplace in game development, and strict deadlines will almost certainly lead to situations like this, where the unwanted assets slip through final quality checks.
Still, it’s good to see Pearl Abyss take swift and decisive action. The studio’s said that it’s working hard to improve Crimson Desert as a whole, and if these updates are anything to go by, it’s on course to deliver a much better experience in record time.
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Robert (or Rob if you’re lazy) is an assistant editor of Push Square, and has been a fan of PlayStation since the 90s, when Tekken 2 introduced him to the incredible world of video games. He still takes his fighting games seriously, but RPGs are his true passion. The Witcher, Persona, Dragon Quest, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Trails, Tales — he’s played ’em all. A little too much, some might say.