Call of Duty’s Steam page confirms generative AI use, after months of player speculation
The game’s Steam page was updated to include an AI disclosure
Call of Duty’s Steam page now discloses that the game uses generative AI.
While it’s not clear to what extent generative AI is used in the development of the game, the Steam page now includes an AI Generated Content Disclosure section which simply states: “Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets.”
Some players have been accusing Activision of using generative AI for a number of months now, most notable last December when the Season 1 Reloaded update came to Black Ops 6.
As reported by 80 Level at the time, the update included a loading screen showing an illustration of a Santa zombie with telltale signs of AI generation, such as odd-looking ribbons on his parcel, his left hand in an unnatural pose and his right hand having six fingers.
Since January 2024 Steam has been requiring developers to disclose the use of generative AI as part of its terms, which led to some wondering why Call of Duty didn’t have such a disclosure on its Steam page.
However, it has now been discovered by Call of Duty news site CharlieIntel that the game’s Steam page now finally features an AI disclosure, albeit a vague one that doesn’t go into detail in exactly which in-game assets are AI generated.
While the discovery appears to suggest that the disclosure has just happened, in reality SteamDB’s records show that the disclosure was added to the page around a month ago, on January 27.
It’s likely that people have only just noticed the disclosure due to SteamDB’s newly added ability to filter games that disclose the use of generative AI.
Because Call of Duty currently appears at the top of SteamDB’s list, it’s likely that the presence of its AI disclosure was only just discovered by players testing out SteamDB’s new feature.
In a GDC survey published in January 2024, nearly 50% of developers said generative AI tools were being used at their workplace, with 84% saying they were concerned about their use.
31% of respondents said they personally used tools such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, GitHub Copilot or Adobe Generative Fill at their company, while a further 18% said they didn’t but others in their workplace did.
