Crimson Desert is raising some AI-brows with a bevy of suspiciously generated-looking art

Weird horses, stray hay, and improper pronouns

Crimson Desert is, by many accounts, a video game. A not necessarily good one, a perhaps just ok to occasionally baffling video game that appears to be big for the sake of winning a pissing contest. It is also potentially a video game that is not being entirely honest about certain art assets being human-made or not.

As spotted by the fine folks over at sibling site European Gamer, a number of people currently making their way through the full-sized candy bar-esque RPG have noticed that some of the art in-game, as in what are in-world pieces of art, appear to be AI-generated. Take, for example, the below image which shows what is probably multiple people riding horses that have limbs in entirely biologically impossible places.

Found this AI Painting.
by u/Rex_Spy in CrimsonDesert

There's also a couple of instances of drawings that look a tad suspicious with the previously classic telltale sign of hands with mismatching finger counts. IGN found a painting of a man… putting… hay? Into a dog/pig/creature? Amongst other, suspicious looking images. One person even suggested that the game's German translation was done using AI given the improper use of particular second person pronouns, with a couple of commenters on that post suggesting similarly of the Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese translations.

Developer Pearl Abyss are yet to comment on the allegations, which it's important to note is that all these are right now. Their most recent update around the game is just related to the game's supposedly busted control scheme and how they plan to adjust it.

But if the game is using AI-generated assets as it appears to be, the other issue is that not disclaiming their inclusion is against Steam's terms of service. Admittedly this does rank lower compared to the problem of the use of AI in the first place, but even when used in small ways like this, it's frustrating to not know it's there. I suppose now we just wait for the "these were just temporary assets that were not meant to make it into the final game" generic comment somewhere down the line.