Publisher apologizes after fans spot signs of AI generation in contract artist's Duke Nukem promo illustration

pcgamer.com:

Earlier this week Blaze Entertainment announced a new Duke Nukem collection for its Evercade retro handheld, which will include remasters of the first two Duke Nukem games—back when he was still a blocky sidescrolling man. With all due respect to the Duke, it wasn't really a big deal as game announcements go, but it became one when people figured out, in very short order, that Blaze had used AI generated art in promotional images for the bundle.

At first blush, the image looks innocuous enough: It's Duke Nukem, standing on some big dead thing, guns in hand, blasting away at stuff off-screen. But as Kotaku pointed out, there are several red flags: I think some of it is overstated (the legs look fine to me, it's a pretty typical superhero-style pose) but the guns (the literal guns, not Duke's biceps) are noticeably out of perspective, and there's no doubt that the trigger finger on his right hand just ain't right.

Any doubts about whether the image was AI generated seemed to be put to rest when Blaze took the images down and issued an official apology.

«An artist was commissioned to produce a lead image for the new Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered game developed by Blaze Entertainment,» Blaze CEO Andrew Byatt said. «It is abundantly clear from the response on social media that the work on this commission has fallen below the expectation and standards demanded by fans due to the artists’ use of AI in the process.

»We are immediately removing the art where possible to do so and will be announcing a replacement commission in due course that better meets the high standard expected. We would like to apologise to you, all of the fans, who have felt passionately about this enough and please be assured are working to remedy this. We also