Overwatch 2 developer Blizzard has responded to accusations that new sprays for the competitive hero shooter were created with AI, firmly denying such claims.
Fans of the game took to platforms such as X and Reddit, pointing out what they perceived as telltale signs that the sprays depicting cartoony versions of Venture, Juno, and the game’s new Hero Wuyang were AI-generated.
One user on X cited the “hair and line art” in a spray showing Venture and Juno posing back-to-back, and another user claimed that there were “weird errors and strange details that’d be odd for an industry artist to make,” such as one of Juno’s eyebrows being over her hair while the other being under.
In a statement to Kotaku, a Blizzard spokesperson said: “The sprays referenced are artist-made.”
This is far from the first AI accusation that Blizzard has received relating to Overwatch 2. In August, a post from the official Overwatch X account promoting the brand’s collaboration with figurine and plush company Youtooz contained what observers believed to be AI art in the background.
The post was subsequently deleted, with a reply from the Overwatch account clarifying that the art came from Blizzard’s “e-commerce vendor,” adding that the company “expect[s] images such as this to be artist-made, in alignment with our policy.”
In April, players accused Blizzard of including AI-generated voice lines in the German localization of the game for Mercy in a Gundam crossover event. A public relations manager for Blizzard responded in the Blizzard forums, denying the accusation and saying that “certain localized voice lines in some recent Blizzard game content are currently unavailable or changed.”
The use of AI in game development still remains a contentious issue, with fans often backlashing at any possible case of AI-generated content, while AAA companies such as Sony continue to experiment with AI tools such as large language models (LLMs). Back in 2023, reports indicated that Blizzard itself created an AI tool called Blizzard Diffusion to generate concept art.