Insomniac recently found itself in a bit of hot water due to a glitch in Marvel's Wolverine that was perceived as evidence of generative AI. The asset in question was a bathroom sign that's since been patched, and Insomniac has explicitly stated that the graphic is not AI-generated, but that its unusual appearance resulted from a rendering error.

I'm inclined to believe Insomniac in this case. Unfortunately, running into generative AI is becoming more and more commonplace in this line of work, so I've grown fairly accustomed to what janky, low-effort AI-generated assets look like: they don't really look like the bathroom sign in Marvel's Wolverine. According to Insomniac, the strange-looking bathroom sign stems from an issue with a "UV map," which controls how 2D textures interact with 3D objects in-game—this makes sense. But unfortunately, this particular instance doesn't actually matter that much in the grander scheme of AI panic and mistrust, and things are only going to get worse from here.

Marvel's Wolverine and LEGO Batman embrace drastically different gameplay philosophies that highlight the linear vs. open world debate.

Generative AI has grown so indistinguishable from "the real deal" that it often takes a keen, practiced eye to spot it. Even then, the gap between, say, a real photograph and an AI-generated one, is growing smaller and smaller by the day. This is just as true for generative AI in video games as in any other medium.

Insomniac is probably telling the truth about the sign asset not being AI-generated, but there's no way for anyone to be sure about that, which should be a lot more concerning than whatever may or may not have been included in Wolverine .

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