Dead Space creator urges artists to learn AI while defending human creativity in AAA gaming

"I wish artists would take notice that this is a great time to learn some form of AI" - Dead Space creator Glen Schofield doesn't think controversial tech will replace human talent, but still believes it has its place

Game developer and studio founder Glen Schofield has shared his thoughts on AI, and while he doesn't believe it will replace human labour any time soon, he thinks artists should take the time to learn some form of the technology now, before it is too late. "I hear people saying soon you'll be able to make a AAA game with 20 people because of AI. I want to believe it, but when I'm working through one of my levels, I'm always going, 'Move that pixel over. That should come down. I want more wires. I want two blue ones there. And I want this exactly here'. And then we're sitting there adjusting the camera. We're doing this day in and day out, all the time. Now imagine that with the code, the art and everything else. It's about being nuanced to hell," Schofield - who is known for the likes of Dead Space and more recently The Callisto Protocol - said in conversation with Eurogamer's sister-site GamesIndustry.biz. However, while he doesn't believe that AI as it is now is capable of the same nuance as human intervention, he wishes "artists would take notice that this is a great time to learn some form" of the technology. "In five years, people will be coming out of school who know AI, while artists sit back saying, 'I'm not doing it'. People said the same thing about performance capture and motion capture," Schofield said. "I even had a couple of people quit because they were against it, which is the same thing I'm hearing now. They say it steals artists' work. Too late! It's out there now." "All I'm hearing is that we have to make development cheaper. We have to spend less money and we have to do it with fewer people. One word I don't hear in any of that is 'creativity'... You have to be creative 99 percent of the time," Schofield continued, noting a new game needs characters and assets to bring it to life, and to create these, developers need to have the tools to do so. "That's what [AI companies] are making, tools to make my characters faster and animation better and all that. I'd like to see the integration of all of it, hopefully within one of the big engines," he said. "That's a lot of work, to integrate all these freaking tools that are going on. And these tools, will they make us more creative? Yes, in some ways they will. But do you think the animators are now gonna go home after four hours because their job is faster? No! We're gonna be putting more and more stuff into these games, because we have more time." But then, what of the cost of these tools? Schofield reasoned he is "a gamemaker, not a toolmaker", so he will have to either buy or rent the necessary tech. "Do you think they're gonna give away the tools for free? No freaking way! They're gonna be freaking expensive," he expressed. "Everyone is gonna want their money back, and they know they have a short window to get it back because some of these AI companies are gonna fail. "And then we're gonna need to hire AI people to implement everything, and they're gonna be expensive too." Schofield was executive producer on the first Dead Space game in 2008. He went on to develop spiritual successor The Callisto Protocol at Striking Distance Studios in 2022. However, Schofield left Striking Distance in 2023 after the game flopped. In July of last year, Schofield wrote about his struggles in the industry post-Striking Distance, admitting: "It's tough out there."

"You Have to Be Creative": Glen Schofield Thinks "True" Creatives Can Save AAA Gaming While Asking Artists to "Learn Some Form of AI"

Glen Schofield, the Dead Space creator and more recently the founder of Striking Distance Studios, the team behind the Dead Space spiritual successor, The Callisto Protocol, is the kind of industry veteran who is almost always up for sharing his thoughts on what he believes the path forward for the industry is. Last year, while also admitting that the commercial failure that was The Callisto Protocol might have been the last game he gets to direct in his long career, he also talked about the current state of the video game industry and why it's so difficult for anyone looking to make their mark, particularly in AAA game development, because publishers don't want to spend what he believes is required to make those games properly. Now, in an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, Schofield dug into what he believes can help save AAA game development, while also sharing a few more thoughts on the most controversial topic in games right now: Generative AI (GenAI) and its place in game development. For starters, the way to save AAA games, according to Schofield, is to have the right people in charge. Not exactly the most nuanced of opinions, but in the fallout that came after the COVID-19 pandemic and the rush of investment that the video game industry saw at the start of the 2020s, it's worth recognizing that the people in charge were perhaps not the ones who should've been leading the way. "During COVID, we couldn't make AAA games fast enough. Everyone wanted a big game, because everybody was sitting at home playing games. Billions of dollars poured into the industry. When you have that much money coming in, you inevitably give it to the wrong people," Schofield said. He clarifies that what he means by 'the wrong people' are just inexperienced leaders, adding, "I look at who they are (and some of them I know) and I think, 'he's ten years away, she's five years away from being able to do this.' They're handed a studio and a game at the same time. I've been doing that for a long time, so I've had the opportunity to work my way up to that." Schofield also doesn't just put the blame on leaders he felt were inexperienced. Fault also lies with investors who weren't careful enough to do proper due diligence, and follows that up with a shot at Bungie before expounding on how putting trust in "true" creatives is the path forward. "The due diligence by the people who are investing is terrible. Think of Bungie! They were overpaying, and they weren't paying the right people in many cases. All you have to do is find who the true creative person is, as opposed to the person who just says they're creative. There are a lot of people who copy very well. The non-creative people just have to scratch the surface harder to find some creative people that in turn will help them hire the right creative people." But while Schofield is adamant that you have to find the right creative people, he was also adamant in his wishes that those same creatives would "learn some form of AI." Though he doesn't exactly believe the pitch that AI (or more specifically, GenAI) will be the end-all-be-all solution its biggest supporters boast about it being. "I hear people saying soon you'll be able to make a AAA game with 20 people because of AI," Schofield says. "I want to believe it, but when I'm working through one of my levels, I'm always going, 'Move that pixel over. That should come down. I want more wires. I want two blue ones there. And I want this exactly here.' And then we're sitting there adjusting the camera. We're doing this day in and day out, all the time. Now imagine that with the code, the art and everything else. It's about being nuanced as hell." "I wish artists would take notice that this is a great time to learn some form of AI. In five years people will be coming out of school who know AI, while artists sit back saying, 'I'm not doing it.' People said the same thing about performance capture and motion capture. I even had a couple of people quit because they were against it, which is the same thing I'm hearing now. They say it steals artists' work. Too late! It's out there now." Of course, that's the biggest issue for those who are against using GenAI tools. It's here, and it's never going to be like it was before the GenAI pandora's box was opened. You can't un-ring this bell, and now developers have a choice between losing their jobs or using the tech. It's exactly the sentiment that the GDC State of the Game Industry Report 2026 described when respondents said "AI is theft, I have to use it, otherwise I'll get fired." But like other proponents of GenAI tech, Schofield is staunch in saying that GenAI tools could help make development faster or cheaper, but it cannot replace actual creativity. "All I'm hearing is that we have to make development cheaper. We have to spend less money and we have to do it with fewer people. One word I don't hear in any of this is 'creativity.' You have to be creative 99% of the time."