Larian publishing director balks at Square Enix's push to replace QA workers with AI: 'The idea that QA people can be replaced at a large scale is stupid … They are a massively advantageous vibe check'

Quality assurance—the sacred task of making sure games break as infrequently as possible—is a non-negotiable part of development, especially when you're talking about big triple-A RPGs. It's something the folks at Square Enix and Larian know a thing or two about; but while the higher-ups at Square have made it clear they'd like the vast majority of the QA process automated, Larian publishing honcho Michael Douse says that's "stupid."

Square's plans, which came to light in a recent financial progress report, were part of a larger push to utilize AI in partnership with a research team at Matsuo Laboratory at the University of Tokyo. That report named a goal which, were I a QA worker at Square Enix right about now, I would find pretty startling: to "automate 70% of QA and debugging tasks in game development by the end of 2027."

Douse, publishing director at Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian, conceded Thursday in a post on X that "AI and automation is clearly integral to QA for any large scale game" but said "the idea that QA people can be replaced at a large scale is stupid because it supposes that the conversations with them can be replaced and they can't. They are a massively advantageous vibe check."

Further down in the thread, he added that QA jobs were crucial "gateways to the industry" that, though not inherently entry-level, tended to be the sorts of jobs that helped you find your next lead designer. Without that pipeline for junior developers to get their foot in the door, Douse said it's hard to "offer people beneficial positions that allow them to grow and help to grow you." In other words, "this is a stupid path."

If the benefit of AI in a field like QA feels like a grey area to you, things aren't going to get clearer any time soon. There's no shortage of contention as to what counts as generative AI, and investment money is getting thrown around like candy despite dubious results. I don't know how many studios will take after Square's new QA strategy, but it's clear that AI, in one form or another, is already more than a little popular as a gamedev tool.