The AI marketing continues as Ark: Aquatica trailer attacked by fans

The Aquatica expansion for Ark: Survival Evolved has been eviscerated by fans accusing it of being AI-generated, as Studio Wildcard distance themselves from the row.

AI is something we’re going to be hearing about more and more over the coming years, and not just in gaming. It’s almost certainly going to be a key part of the next gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles and it’s already being used in current games to generate some content.

Microsoft in particular is very keen on using AI in a more substantial way, to make games, but it’s already commonplace in games marketing, even though fans always complain about it when they see it – such as with the infamous six-fingered Santa Claus in Call Of Duty ads over Christmas.

Where all this is going to lead – except for more and more low level artists being put out of a job – isn’t clear but the latest controversy is over a trailer for DLC expansion Ark: Aquatica, which appears to be almost entirely AI generated.

Online game Ark: Survival Evolved has been around since 2017, so everyone knows what the game looks like, and yet the trailer for the Aquatica expansion is very clearly AI generated.

This is especially obvious as there’s a couple of seconds of first person footage from the game at the start of the trailer, which looks nothing like the rest of it.

At no point does the trailer indicate that the video is AI generated – it doesn’t even have a disclaimer about not being in-game footage – even though some sections, such as a part where a character is riding on the back of a fish, are implied to be so.

It’s not clear if the video was always unlisted but it is now, with 4,100 down votes and only 166 up votes. Rather than original creators Studio Wildcard, the expansion is being developed by Snail Games, who have not yet commented on the controversy.

‘This is disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourselves,’ says Syntac in the YouTube comments section.

‘Absolutely pathetic, no one and I mean no one should by this DLC!’ adds Veno.

‘Imagine how many AI shortcuts they took for the DLC if this is the effort they put into the trailer,’ says LoneWolf007.

Meanwhile, plutoniclol6589 asks the question: ‘What even is the point of an AI trailer? You’re showing NOTHING. This is worse than having [a] PowerPoint presentation about the DLC.’

The main games are made by Studio Wildcard and the video is not part of their X feed but there is a tweet, picked up on by the comments section, that insists that Ark: Aquatica is being developed by Snail Games.

It also states that ‘Studio Wildcard remains entirely dedicated to the production of Ark: Survival Ascended and Ark 2, and we’re excited to bring Ark: Lost Colony to you later this year!’

We’ve contacted Snail Games for comment but have not heard anything back yet.

Even though the trailer has instantly killed fan interest in the expansion, this sort of thing is destined to become more and more commonplace in the games industry – especially for lower budget titles or games that are still a long way out.

While the Ark: Aquatica trailer looks bad even to an untrained eye, it’s certain that AI-generated video will become more and more realistic over time, making it harder than ever to predict what the actual game will look like.

Whether publishers will pull back from the practice, without any sort of legislation to force them to do so, remains to be seen but it’s all very reminiscent of earlier generations, where trailers pretended pre-rendered footage was what the game looked like and were later forced to add ‘not in-game footage’ disclaimers to make it clear it wasn’t.

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