Saber Interactive CCO Tim Willits has confirmed that there will be no generative AI used in the development of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3.
Following the controversies surrounding Saber’s upcoming Rideshare Simulator game, which replaced a writer with GenAI writing, the studio has been on the back foot. In fact, Willits himself defended the use of GenAI for the company’s Rideshare game, stating that “consumers don’t really know what they want”.
Nevertheless, in an interview with IGN, Willits claimed that the majority of Saber Interactive games, including Space Marine 3, will not be making use of Generative AI tools. This comes after posts from fans claiming the third game in the series is “f****d” following Saber’s AI slant.
“There is absolutely no generative AI in Space Marine 3 or Hellraiser or Stuntman or Turok or Jurassic Park, or [John] Wick,” Willits told the outlet. “But like we said, we’re going to experiment with it. Try it out in Rideshare, see if it works. See if people like it. If they don’t like it, we’re like, ‘All right.’”
As many fans know, Games Workshop has publicly denounced the use of AI tools for all Warhammer products in a bid to “respect human creators”. This also applies to those working with the IP, especially since third-party Warhammer assets are pushed to be as close to first-party art and models as possible.
Willits explained that the team is “good” on its disclosures to Games Workshop, and the third game will continue development in a similar manner to its predecessor. While Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 3 will avoid GenAI altogether, Willits is still keen to have studios experiment with the tech where they believe it makes sense.
“We’ve always been using AI in some stretch of the imagination, but we as in developers, we don’t really know what to do with it. Honestly, we don’t,” Willits said. “If anyone tells you they do, they don’t. And then players, they don’t really know what to do with it. So I do believe this is going to happen. Somebody — I don’t know who — somebody will come up with a game that is so freaking cool that it will change everyone’s opinion and it’ll be like, ‘Oh, that’s it.’ And then things will settle.”
Saber Interactive has a tonne of titles in the works across its litany of studios around the world, and right now a single game is making use of GenAI. With that said, fans are still not happy, and the trust that Saber earned from Space Marine 2 is already dwindling in response to executive comments from the company.
As for Space Marine 3, the title is still “years” away at the time of writing. For Warhammer fans, though, Saber is still working on additional content for Space Marine 2 after the game’s unprecedented success, and there shouldn’t be any GenAI use for that game, either.
