Canadian developer Panache Digital, co-founded by Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets, has said it is still using AI tools to help develop its witchy action game 1666: Amsterdam, albeit “less and less”.

The studio was speaking after controversy arose earlier this year around 1666: Amsterdam’s playable prologue, in which players spotted the tell-tale signs of generative AI use on in-game paintings and in associated marketing materials. The backlash prompted an apology from Panache and a declaration that AI use wouldn’t find its way into the full game.

Speaking at a preview event I recently attended in Amsterdam, Patrice Désilets shed more light on the issue. “It won’t be in the final product,” he began, answering a question about AI from a small group of press during a gameplay presentation. “We live in a world full of AI – let’s be honest between ourselves – but there were some [assets] we didn’t retouch enough in the pipeline, and since then we made sure that there will not be any use of AI anywhere in the game.”

Expanding on the issue, Désilets said: “Then in the pipeline, there’s again an issue. I can ask the AI to give me 75 different variations of one thing, but I cannot have 75 different illustrators come up with a variation in three seconds. This is the world in which we’re living, and while we were this small team and building [the game], we put it in. We didn’t even realise it was AI any more because we were used to seeing it.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he reiterated. “But being honest, when we were doing it two, three years ago by ourselves, and when we shipped [the demo], some slipped. That would not be the case any more.”

Here, I asked for clarification about the ongoing use of AI in development, because it sounded to me as though it was still being used. “Exactly,” Désilets responded. “And now we’re using less and less because we don’t need them, because it’s not about ‘okay, I need something quick’. It’s true: this is the main [advantage or use of it].”

“We can have a big discussion about AI as human beings, but right now it’s tough to have the discussion” -Patrice Désilets

He continued: “We can have a big discussion about AI as human beings, but right now it’s tough to have the discussion.” At this, another member of the press and a creator said they didn’t need this discussion because it was just another tool to be used. To which Désilets added: “And it’s everywhere: trying to find something on Google without AI…” But with a laugh he said he didn’t want to have this discussion in front of a room of journalists.

Panache Digital is an approximately 70-person team that’s been working on 1666: Amsterdam since 2020. Its early years were spent concepting during Covid lockdown when Désilets overhauled the game’s premise – to be less about a devil’s apprentice and more about a witch instead. It’s now been in production for several years, funded mostly by a secret party rumoured to be Xbox, though Désilets wouldn’t confirm or deny this. “I don’t know who it was but they’re not there any more,” he told me in a separate interview, with a knowing smile.

1666: Amsterdam is a game about a witch called Noa living in Amsterdam in 1666, perhaps obviously. But it’s also about a man called Aaron living in 1999, and about Aaron’s descendent Clio living in the present day. Their timelines overlap to tell a story about a Collector, who the devil charges with tracking down and ‘collecting’ the souls of powerful people known as Originals, living across Amsterdam. It’s a refreshingly unique concept, as I wrote in my 1666: Amsterdam preview, though its implementation is sometimes scruffy right now.

1666: Amsterdam launches into PC early access (via Steam and the Epic Games Store) on 25th August priced $30.