Tears of the Kingdom Developers Approached Automated Art, Procedural Generation With Caution
Posted on August 30 2024 by Nick Miller
At Japan’s Computer Entertainment Development Conference, Tears of the Kingdom Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer Takuma Oiso said during a presentation focused on how developers implemented the Ascend ability that the team was cautious with how they implemented automated processes during Tears of the Kingdom‘s development. This comes a month after Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa expressed similar hesitations about the use of generative AI in the game development process, though much of his remarks were in regard to copyright infringement. Oiso explained that his concerns were more directed towards creative output, saying that the development team was careful to ensure that they weren’t “losing something valuable.”
It is a common practice for game developers to automate certain aspects of the development process. These automated tools can be used to efficiently develop landscapes, animations, and object placement, among other things. Tears of the Kingdom developers used automated processes in the development of caves, for example, to produce them quickly, allowing more time to re-conceptualize and adjust caves after gathering playtesting data. According to Lead Terrain Artist Manabu Takehara, going through the cycle of conceptualization, implementation, and playtesting as many times as possible was essential to optimizing Tears of the Kingdom‘s entertainment value.
However, Oiso warned, “if we were to pursue this [automation] blindly, the game could potentially end up losing something valuable.” His concern isn’t without merit either. As we’ve seen in many games that heavily rely on procedural generation, most notably massive open-world games like No Man’s Sky or many rogue-likes, that level of automation will inevitably cause players to recognize patterns and repetition in the game. For games that don’t bake this repetition into the gameplay itself, as rogue-likes do, this can stifle player immersion and taint their overall experience.
That feeling of immersion, or that feeling that you, the player, are exploring a real, lived-in world, is that “something of value” that is lost through over-automation. The game begins to feel less like a world to explore or a story to experience, and more like a game to be beaten. A game like Tears of the Kingdom that is built upon immersion and exploration can’t afford to sacrifice those values.
For that reason, Tears of the Kingdom‘s developers established boundaries for what could be automated and what had to be done by hand. Anything “gameplay-facing,” or variables that effect how players interact with the game, had to be done by hand. This includes things like level design and enemy placement. Automated variables were entirely decorative, though even these would be tweaked later by artists.
This “cave-system” was so successful in improving time efficiency that artists would then use it to develop the sky islands as well. Takehara acknowledged that, although he was skeptical of automation at first, using it in the caves showed him that it can be utilized without sacrificing creative output. As Games Radar puts it, automation lets “a computer pull the cart while an actual artist holds the reins.” As long as the artist maintains control of this metaphorical cart, automation has the potential to improve creative output by allowing the computer to take over the mundane and repetitious workload, while allowing artists to pour more of their time and creativity into variables that count.
Now tell us what you think: Do you think automation is a blessing or a burden to creative output? Were developers able to create unique and interesting caves to explore in Tears of the Kingdom? What boundaries would you liked to see placed on AI in the future of game development? Tell us these thoughts and more in the comments below.
Source: Computer Entertainment Development Conference (via Famitsu, Automaton, Games Radar)
Nick is a writer for Zelda Dungeon and a longtime fan of the Zelda franchise. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, archery, skateboarding, and some good ol’ fashioned family time. He’s an advocate for physical media and an avid video game collector. His favorite Zelda game is Ocarina of Time, though Breath of the Wild and the Link’s Awakening remake are close contenders. His other favorite video games series include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout, and Ratchet & Clank.
