Arc Raiders publisher believes AI will redesign game development and says it has a clear advantage over other developers

Last year, the third-person shooter Arc Raiders faced criticism for using AI text-to-speech for NPC dialogue. Although Embark Studio brought back voice actors to record more lines, it never fully abandoned the AI-generated ones. The studio defended its approach, saying the goal was not to make games without actors but to speed up production by mixing recorded and AI-generated lines.

Fast forward to today, Embark Studio CEO Patrick Soderlund was recently promoted to executive chairman of publisher Nexon and is once again weighing in on the controversial use of AI in gaming, calling it a force that will "redesign game development." In a new capital markets briefing, Soderlund highlighted Nexon's broader AI approach.

Soderlund argues most companies have the wrong idea about AI's role in game development, and says Nexon has an edge because it understands the technology more deeply. "AI may be a race, but the winners won't be first movers. The winners will be the ones who understood the challenge," he said.

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Soderlund compared game development to auto mechanics, arguing that while the tools are accessible to everyone, only those who truly know how to use them will come out ahead.

He went on to explain that Embark starts every project from scratch, questioning what needs to be done by humans versus machines to build the most efficient workflow possible. "Yes, some of that involves AI. But it's really about encouraging people to use smarter processes, better tools, and to let go of habits that no longer serve them," he added.

Embark's first two games, The Finals and Arc Raiders, were produced with fewer people and about a third of a typical AAA budget, which Soderlund credits to the studio's intelligent use of AI. "Our success wasn't accident. It was deliberate," he said. He now plans to bring this approach to all of Nexon.

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Nexon's broader vision for AI is linked to its "Mono Lake" initiative, described by president and CEO Junghun Lee as an "end-to-end step change in how we create and support our games." Lee argues that "without context, AI is a race to the arithmetic middle where everyone's games look the same." Nexon's advantage, he says, is its enormous base of player data - billions of data points from decades of player interactions - that it can feed into the system at scale and speed.

Both Soderlund and Lee have emphasized that their initiative is meant to free developers to create, not to replace them. "Our methodology doesn't replace creative people, it frees them to create, with context," Lee added.

Nevertheless, bringing AI into game development remains a divisive topic. While Embark is leaning in, studios like Capcom have committed to keeping AI-generated assets entirely out of their games. The industry appears split between using AI to enhance the creative process and using it simply to cut costs, and which approach wins out will likely define the next generation of game development.