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A hot potato: Activision has admitted what most people have suspected for years: it is using some AI-generated content in Call of Duty. It doesn’t come as too much of a surprise given the evidence, which includes an image of a zombie Santa Claus in a loading screen with six fingers. It’s a contentious issue, especially as Activision Blizzard laid off 1,900 employees in 2023.
Claims that Activision was using AI began gaining popularity around the time of Modern Warfare 3. Wired reported last year that the company had started using AI tools in its game development in 2023, a year when approximately 11,250 people working in the industry were laid off.
The report claims that Activision approved the use of certain generative AI tools in creating concept art and marketing materials in mid-2023, and by the end of the year, Activision released an AI-generated cosmetic, the $15 Yokai’s Wrath bundle, on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 store.
What was probably Activision’s most obvious use of AI appeared in a holiday-themed loading screen that showed a zombie Santa with six fingers – one of the signs that an image was generated using artificial intelligence tools. There was also a multi-digit hand used to promote Zombies Gobblegum, while the Hard Breakup calling card features an image of a woman with hair and buckles that look a lot like AI-generated assets.
Activision neither confirmed nor denied the accusations, but in January 2025, Steam announced a new policy stating that developers must disclose any use of AI within their games.
Presumably as a result of Valve’s policy, Activision now includes a disclaimer on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Steam page that states, “Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in-game assets.” Interestingly, there is no such disclosure on the Modern Warfare 3 page, at least not yet.
The disclaimer seems deliberately vague as game assets could refer to a lot of things, including cosmetics.
While gamers aren’t happy about the admission, there seem to be some areas where Activision is using AI that have been deemed acceptable. One of these is to identify Call of Duty cheaters, another is the chat moderation system, which saw a 43% drop in toxicity following its implementation.
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