Square Enix president believes “aggressive” approach to AI will improve game development

Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu has already ruffled feathers in the new year by reaffirming a desire for the company to utilize AI technology in its upcoming games and projects.

In the annual New Year’s Letter from the President, Kiryu expressed that the company intends “to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions.

“In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities.”

Kiryu also speaks highly of technologies like ChatGPT, which, in his words, “made it apparent that the applicability of generative AI was by no means limited to text, and the subsequent months saw a quick succession of launches of new services and content that expanded generative AI into a variety of domains with close ties to digital entertainment, including images, video, and music.”

It’s worth noting that Kiryu was not specific in how exactly Square Enix will leverage AI technology in its upcoming titles, among those being the highly anticipated Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. He also avoids mentioning that generative AI platforms are suspected of training on data created by writers and artists without their permission. Incidentally, this is the focus of an ongoing lawsuit against platforms like Midjourney and Stability.

Of course, artificial intelligence has always been a staple of the medium when it comes to the more technical side of things. It’s how we even have NPCs to fight against in single-player games. It has more recently been helpfully used in tech like Nvidia DLSS, which leverages AI to improve resolution and frame rate at a negligible hit to overall game performance.

It’s the mention of using generative AI for “images, video, and music,” as Kiryu highlights, that has folks on social media concerned. Last year, Square Enix also worked on projects involving Final Fantasy 7 NFT trading cards and plans for a blockchain-based RPG; neither of which went down particularly well with the company’s fan base.

With the new year upon us, you may be looking at a whole new list of games to play. Our guides to the best PS5 games and best Nintendo Switch games are here to help you make your choices.