A new Ecco the Dolphin game is on the way, and original creator Ed Annunziata is involved.
Yesterday saw the reconfirmation of a new entry in the Ecco series, as well as "several" new Ecco products – but one thing fans have voiced concern over is Annunziata's previous stance on topics such as NFTs and GenAI.
The developer – whose credits also include Chakan: The Forever Man, Kolibri, Mr. Bones and Three Dirty Dwarves – has previously been quite vocal about his support of tech such as Web3, AI and LLMs (Large Language Models) in video games.
His LinkedIn profile states that one of his "near-term" goals is to "create an AI system to generate ergodic game content." His current company, PLAYCHEMY, lists "gamification of AI models, Stable Diffusion, LLM, and NeRF" as some of its primary areas of interest.
He's not alone – many developers are embracing tech like GenAI in their development pipelines – but some Ecco fans have taken to social media to highlight Annunziata's connections to these often-controversial emerging technologies.
We reached out to Annunziata to inquire whether GenAI would be utilised in Ecco's development. He replied that "not a single pixel" will be generated by AI, although he added that he intends to be "all in on DLSS on Switch 2".