A six-fingered zombie Santa asset in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's Season 1 Reloaded update drew heavy online criticism and remains in the game months later. Treyarch says it uses generative AI tools to streamline development but claims those assets do not go into final builds. The studio describes any AI-derived asset presence as accidental and says teams are reviewing such content. Questions persist about why the image was not removed after eight months. Use of generative AI in game development is increasing rapidly, with Steam disclosures rising dramatically year over year.
So what happened with the festive zombie? "And then you're going to say, 'Yeah, but it has,'" Miles continued. "I'll say it has by accident. And that was never the intention. We've come out and been very clear that we use these as tools to help the team, but they do not replace any of the fantastic team members we have that are doing the final touches and building that content to put it in the game."
Placeholder assets getting accidentally left in a game wouldn't surprise me that much - just see the controversy over the allegedly stolen art in Marathon. But can it be an accident that it's still there eight months later? When pushed on why the image hadn't been removed, Miles was unsure. "Yeah, good question," he said. "Not my department, but I know that the team is actively looking at that stuff, making sure that it is not shipped, and how we fix it."
Collection
[
|
...
]