The CEO of Genvid — the company behind choose-your-own-adventure interactive series like Silent Hill Ascension — has claimed “consumers generally do not care” about generative AI in games, stating: “Gen Z loves AI slop.”

Jacob Navok, a former Square Enix director, evidenced his claim by reminding us that the biggest game of the year, Steal a Brainrot, “had 30m concurrents or approximately 80x the Arc Raiders concurrents, and is named after/based on AI slop characters.”

“For all the anti-AI sentiment we’re seeing in various articles, it appears consumers generally do not care,” he wrote on X/Twitter (thanks, GamesRadar+). “All the brainrots are just 3D models of AI slop. Gen Z loves AI slop, does not care. The upcoming generation of gamers are Bane in Dark Knight Rises saying ‘You merely adopted the slop, I was born in it.’

Arc Raiders has enjoyed huge popularity and big sales despite an online controversy around its use of generative AI to generate character voice. Streamer Shroud has suggested this AI controversy held Arc Raiders back from being considered for the Game of the Year award at this year’s The Game Awards.

Yesterday, November 17, we reported that Assassin’s Creed publisher Ubisoft was forced to remove an image found within Anno 117: Pax Romana that contained AI-generated elements after fans complained, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 players promptly took to social media to complain about AI-generated images they had found across the game, following a trend of AI-Ghibli images from earlier this year.

The Alters developer, 11 Bit Studios, and Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer, Frontier Developments, meanwhile, similarly faced fan backlash recently when they were caught using undisclosed AI images, which doesn’t quite track with Navok’s assumption that “consumers do not care.”

Suggesting that a “tipping point has been reached,” Navok also stressed that because “Activision isn’t shying away from AI, neither is Arc Raiders,” the tech was here to stay.

“I should add that in-game art and voices are merely the tip of the spear. Many studios I know are using AI generation in the concept phase, and many more are using Claude for code,” he added. “It will be hard to find a non-indie title that isn’t using Claude for code, and ignoring Claude’s AI use because it’s code while focusing purely on art shows that a lot of AI sentiment is being driven by emotion rather than logic.”

In Navok’s defence, it certainly feels as though his comments ring true, at least across other big developers and publishers, too. EA CEO Andrew Wilson has said AI is “the very core of our business,” and Square Enix recently implemented mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it needed to be “aggressive in applying AI.” Dead Space creator Glen Schofield also recently detailed his plans to “fix” the industry in part via the use of generative AI in game development, and former God of War dev Meghan Morgan Juinio said: “… if we don’t embrace [AI], I think we’re selling ourselves short.” Conversely, Nintendo has bucked the trend, with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto previously stressing that the company would rather go in a “different direction” than the rest of the video game industry when it comes to AI.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Escape from Tarkov game director Nikita Buyanov has apologized to players for the “rough” release of the extraction shooter’s 1.0 version and Steam debut, saying the team is “willing to continue fighting” to “finally crack the performance problems.”

On Steam, Escape from Tarkov currently has a ‘mixed’ user review rating, with most of the complaints around server issues that are causing long queues, performance problems, and bugs.

Writing on Twitter/X, Battlestate’s Buyanov thanked players “for this overwhelming interest for the game,” adding: “servers get full really fast so we[‘re] adding more and more servers worldwide to cut matching times more. We are also fixing all of the incoming bugs, and as I said, we will continue to improve and fix the game for the next months.

“The release was rough for sure, sorry for that. But we are willing to continue fighting for everything good against bad. We will continue to provide to you, actual fans of the game, things that you will enjoy. We need to finally crack this performance problems, outdated stuff and legacy bugs which [are] left. Yes, a lot of things were fixed in release version, but it’s not enough.”

In a separate statement posted to Steam, Battlestate thanked players for “supporting the project throughout all stages of development and testing, and for deciding to share this important event,” and said, “despite careful preparation, unforeseen situations may arise during the process. Your bug reports help us quickly find and fix issues, making your gaming experience more comfortable and stable.”

Battlestate also promised in-game compensation for all players in the near future: a Bear Classic and USEC Night Patrol set. If these sets have already been purchased, an in-game reward will be credited, the developer continued.

A technical update released on Monday, November 17, issued a handful of issues. Patch notes are below:

• Fixed an issue with a broken character model appearing in the Hideout in certain cases;
• Fixed the game client freeze when switching to Trader interaction screen from the Hideout;
• Fixed the incorrect lighting for Jaeger when SSR is enabled in graphics settings;
• Fixed the cause of main menu elements appearing during matching in certain cases;
• Disabled several PostFX settings;
• Fixed the cause of bots teleporting while using stationary weapons in certain cases;
• Fixed the cause of bots flying in the air in certain cases.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Rebecca Heineman, known best for co-founding original Fallout developer Interplay alongside Brain Fargo, Jay Patel, and Troy Worrell in the early 1980s, has died aged 62.

The news was shared by her friend Heidi McDonald, who wrote on BlueSky that “my trailblazing game industry bad-ass friend Rebecca Heineman has passed away. F**k cancer. Friends, let’s not forget her.”

On a GoFundMe page set up by Heineman shortly after her diagnosis, she described herself as “the very first video game champion, creator of Bard’s Tale 3, Dragon Wars, and one of the founders of Interplay Productions and MacPlay. Creator of Sailor Ranko the webcomic and software archivist.” The fund remains open to support Heineman’s family.

In her final message, penned yesterday, November 17, she wrote: “It’s time. According to my doctors. All further treatments are pointless. So, please donate so my kids can create a funeral worthy of my keyboard, Pixelbreaker! So I can make a worthy entrance for reuniting with my one true love, Jennell Jaquays. My daughter Cynthia Elizabeth heineman, will be making the arrangements.”

Heineman rose to fame when she won a national Space Invaders tournament in 1980 aged 14, then carved out an impressive gamedev career, having taught herself to code by reverse engineering. Her development and publishing credits include Wasteland, Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, and The Bard’s Tale 3: Thief of Fate. She most recently served as CEO of Olde Sküül.

Bard’s Tale 3 stands out as one of her defining moments at Interplay and of her entire career, Heineman told Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play in 2024. “Being able to head the project and be the decision maker was what started me on the path to being a studio head,” she said. Heineman stayed at Interplay until 1995, watching it grow to upwards of 500 employees. She departed for a new entrepreneurial adventure, desiring a return to small but passionate teams.

She was honored as the 2025 Gayming Icon Award for “her advocacy for LGBTQ+ inclusion, accessibility, and diversity in tech has inspired countless developers and players,” (thanks, PC Gamer).

Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo called her “one of the most brilliant programmers around,” and said news of her death was “a real gut punch.” “Rebecca Heineman sadly passed away. Known her since the 80s when I’d drive her to work, one of the most brilliant programmers around. A real gut punch earlier today when she messaged me: ‘We have gone on so many adventures together! But, into the great unknown! I go first!!!'”

Rebecca Heineman sadly passed away. Known her since the 80s when I’d drive her to work, one of the most brilliant programmers around. A real gut punch earlier today when she messaged me: “We have gone on so many adventures together! But, into the great unknown! I go first!!!” 🙁 pic.twitter.com/lu3i0fyt5C

— Brian Fargo (@BrianFargo) November 17, 2025

Other game developers have also shared their memories, including Rami Ismail and Josh Sawyer, with many others sharing stories of Rebecca’s mentorship, kindness and support.

A game industry legend died a few mins ago, Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky), taken away by aggressive lung cancer. She oversaw the porting of Wizordum to the Mac OS most recently for Apogee. My local friends would often have dinner with her and I loved her industry stories and…

— Scott Miller – Apogee/3D Realms Founder ☢️ (@ScottApogee) November 17, 2025

Image credit: GoFundMe.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Desmond’s death in Assassin’s Creed 3 was ambiguous enough that voice actor Nolan North didn’t realize he’d just recorded the character’s last gasp — and now, North has said that the series’ original modern day protagonist is “technically” still alive.

North played Desmond in five games until the character’s big sacrifice at the end of 2012’s Assassin’s Creed 3. But despite stepping up to save the world — and collapsing in the process — Desmond’s death scene apparently only clicked with North after he checked Twitter following the game’s launch.

“That technically was Desmond’s death scene, and I didn’t know it,” North told Fall Damage. “I found out on Twitter. ‘Are you upset Desmond’s dead?’ And I’m thinking, what? Because there’s no ‘Argh!’ There’s nothing that you’d expect from a main character’s death, although the good people at Ubisoft have told me that he’s not technically dead.”

Here, North is likely referring to the ending of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, where the actor returned to the franchise as a mysterious character named The Reader. Valhalla makes it pretty clear that The Reader is Desmond — or his consciousness which now lives on inside the Animus, at least. And, seemingly, Ubisoft has confirmed this to North.

Desmond’s death (or his physical body’s demise, at any rate) came as a surprise to some fans who’d followed the character since the franchise’s origins. But Ubisoft developers have said that as the Assassin’s Creed series grew in scope, each game began to struggle to onboard new players. Following the end of Desmond’s arc, the series experimented with other ideas for its modern day sections, and currently pushes players directly into the historical action instead.

“I think the original idea was eight or nine games with Desmond,” North continued, referencing Ubisoft’s ever-changing original plans for the Assassin’s Creed series, “but, as it so often goes in the entertainment industry, different developers, different creative directors come in, and they have their own way of continuing the story — and it’s done very, very well.

“I was very sad to step away from the role of Desmond,” he concluded, “because Assassin’s Creed is one of my favorite stories I’ve ever been part of.”

A recent report suggested Ubisoft was planning to remove the modern day section from its widely-rumored Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remake, and bolster the game’s historical sections instead.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social