Apex Legends fans took to social media to accuse the game’s developers of using AI art for some promotional material during the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth event.
Apex Legends revealed a collaboration event with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth during the 2023 Video Game Awards show on December 7, 2023.
With the event set to begin on January 6, 2024, the development team has released promotional materials to get fans excited about what’s in store.
However, some fans have claimed the devs used AI art in some of those promotional materials and took to social media to call out the alleged practice.
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Apex Legends fans call out alleged AI art use in FF7 Rebirth collab
The discussion surrounding AI art began when Art Director and Designer Thorsten Denk accused the dev team of using AI to create interstitial art during a recent trailer.
In a post on X, Denk said, “Apex Legends/EA using AI instead of paying artists for their promo art is just depressing. Pandora’s box has truly been opened and it feels to me like we’ve collectively decided to devalue the human soul for profit.”
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The digital artist shared two screenshots of art from the Apex Legends x FF7 Rebirth trailer, featuring Valkyrie and Wattson. In his post, Denk circled several elements of the artwork to show the alleged AI usage.
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Many artists and members of the gaming community replied to the initial tweet with their thoughts on the situation.
Rainbow Six Siege Community Artist Elevate KOOBI said, “I hadn’t heard of that until now Especially sh*tty to see when you know that they’ve been working with talented artists like IFrAgMenTIx in the past.”
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I hadn’t heard of that until now
Especially shitty to see when you know that they’ve been working with talented artists like @/IFrAgMenTIx in the past
Has the Apex community noticed this yet and brought this to attention or not?
— Elevate KOOBI (@MadeByKOOBI) January 6, 2024
In fact, the official Apex Legends X account shared art created by Fragment on January 5, 2024.
The use of AI continues to be a hot-button topic in the video games industry, with games like The Finals embracing the use of AI during development.
At the time of writing, neither developer Respawn Entertainment nor publisher EA have acknowledged the claim.
