Fortnite artist responds to fans saying game now contains clear examples of AI artwork, including nine-toed character in hammock

one fortnite Artist forced to defend his work after fans recommended tons of images found in game new season was generated by artificial intelligence and included a suspicious-looking poster showing a character in a hammock with an odd number of toes.

Last night, freelance artist Sean Dove started Instagram Responding to claims from fans that his Studio Ghibli-style portrayal of Back to the Future hero Marty McFly is a product of the artificial intelligence generation. Dove, a frequent Fortnite collaborator, demonstrated his process for manually drawing images. While he drew the Ghibli-esque protagonist himself, Dove admits he may still have unintentionally included AI elements in the background.

“I guess someone on Reddit thought it was AI,” Dove wrote. “I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks from an image search, collaged them together, and halftoned them. The numbers are terrible, and it's entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn't paying attention.”

While Dove has responded personally, Fortnite developer Epic Games has so far remained silent on the topic, as fans on Reddit have created numerous posts pointing out other examples of images they believe show signs of AI generation. (IGN contacted Epic Games for this story but did not receive a response.)

The most shocking thing, according to fans, is a poster for a location in the game called Mile High Retreat. The image shows a leg extending from a hammock, with five toes visible on one foot and four on the other.

Another in-game poster gets a closer look from fans Portraying the game's dead-eyed Tomatohead character as the host of a Hollywood-style talk show called Sauce Talk. There were also discussions surrounding the following issues: Mysterious song “Latata” will be used in upcoming emoticons. The music doesn't appear to come from an identifiable source, though some fans believe the audio comes from stock music rather than anything specifically produced by artificial intelligence.

Amid all the confusion and lack of clarification from Epic Games itself, it's clear that Fortnite fans are passionate about opposing the use of AI art in the game. one Huge topic on Reddit Every instance where players suspect the images were made by human hands is being tracked down and looking for more.

“Bad decision,” one player wrote. “I hope it gets revised. As others have said, the art and style of this damn game is one of the main reasons we love it. Generative AI has no place in it.”

“I think something like Darth Vader is cool, using AI to do things that simply wouldn't be possible without it,” another fan wrote. “But this is the only case so far that I've really found. Creating art is something humans, and especially Epic with their money and resources, are very capable of doing.”

Of course, Epic Games is no stranger to artificial intelligence technology, having previously used generative speech technology to recreate James Earl Jones's Darth Vader. But despite having the rights and approval from Disney, the character's inclusion was controversial, especially when Players soon began asking Vader to say things more consistent with the dark side of the Force.

last week, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney suggests Valve ditch Steam’s disclosure label for game AI-generated contentbecause he believes the use of artificial intelligence will become so commonplace that any warnings will become redundant. “Why stop using artificial intelligence?” Sweeney wrote on social media. “We could force disclosure of the shampoo brands used by developers. Customers should know, haha.

“It doesn't matter anymore,” he continued. “The AI ​​label is relevant for authorship disclosures in art exhibitions, but also to the digital content licensing market, where buyers need to know what's going on with the rights. This will make no sense for game stores, as AI will be involved in almost all future productions.”

Speaking of AI artwork, whenever you launch Fortnite recently, you'll see a menu screen with dozens or even hundreds of user-made experiences that use AI artwork as thumbnails, something Epic Games has previously said is pointless in regulating this because technology is advancing rapidly and AI images are nearly indistinguishable.

In fact, if nothing else, the whole incident only highlights how difficult it will be to discern what is and is not AI-generated in 2025.

Tom Phillips is IGN's news editor. You can contact Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social