ARK: Survival Evolved's AI-Animated Trailer Was Created By The Marketing Department, Said Dev

Snail Games' controversy and baffling official reveal trailer for ARK: Aquatica, an upcoming DLC for ARK: Survival Evolved, was like an entry-level test to see if people are blinded to spot the AI-generated imagery. With a 97% dislike rate and almost 6,000 comments of backlash, here are the studio's explanations about how this was created and released.

Apparently, the marketing team is the scapegoat this time, as Lead Game Designer Matt Kohl told Pocket Tactics at GDC, "The marketing department used still images of some of our assets to create an AI-animated trailer. That was not part of the development team; we did not know that they were doing it." 

Kohl also said that no AI tools have been involved in the DLC's development at Snail Games, and the trailer doesn't represent the finished DLC. 

Admit it or not, this event has made Snail Games, a video game company that was founded 25 years ago and headquartered in Suzhou, China, more famous, in a way, regardless of whether they favor it or not. The studio was a big name in China around the 2010s, but has become relatively unknown in recent years. After a few failed attempts, it became listed on the Nasdaq in 2022.

Coincidentally, the company also released announcement trailers around the same time as the DLC trailer for ARK: Survival Evolved for two other new projects made with Unreal Engine, Age of Wushu: WuXia and Age of Wushu: XiuXian. Both new titles are based on the company's video game intellectual property, Age of Wushu. Not surprisingly, Chinese gamers ridiculed both trailers due to the large amount of AI-generated content.