Pearl Abyss, the developer behind Crimson Desert and Dokebi, plans to further integrate generative AI into its development workflow.
In its latest quarterly earnings letter, the Korean studio announced these plans, explaining that previously, the team "could only validate systems after manually completing their development." Now, with the help of AI, Pearl Abyss can "quickly validate various design concepts before actual implementation." The company stated that this approach "allows for more efficient allocation of development resources and overall accelerates project output."
The studio also emphasized: "AI is used solely as a tool to assist in validating design concepts and improving the efficiency of our development pipeline. The core gameplay experience and actual content creation remain entirely led by our development team."
Shortly after the release of Crimson Desert, players noticed that some in-game textures looked unusual, suspecting they were AI-generated. Pearl Abyss quickly responded at the time, confirming that certain "2D visual asset materials" were indeed generated using AI tools. However, the team had always planned to replace them with hand-drawn art assets later on, and these AI-generated materials were promptly removed in a subsequent update for the popular open-world game.
However, Pearl Abyss now appears to have a more positive stance toward this controversial technology. The company stated: "We are integrating AI technology to enhance development efficiency and overall quality. AI has been applied to multiple stages of development—including automating repetitive tasks, assisting in content creation, and optimizing testing processes—and we are expanding its use across the entire development pipeline. We never believe AI can replace developers; it is merely a tool to improve development efficiency and quality. We will continue to expand AI applications to bring higher-quality games to market more quickly."
The earnings letter also mentioned that the previously announced creature-collecting game Dokebi is "scheduled for release in the second half of 2028," with more details to be revealed within the year. A few years ago, Dokebi's initial target release window was 2023. Meanwhile, a version of Crimson Desert for Switch 2 is also in preparation, expected to launch on the platform in the "first half of next year."
The application of generative AI in game development has been a hot topic in the industry in recent years, becoming even more widespread in recent months: Steam is flooded with numerous low-quality AI-generated games, and major publishers like Epic Games have prominently adopted this technology. Recent reports estimate that approximately 40% of active developers currently use AI tools in their work.