Call of Duty players are calling out Black Ops 6 devs for suspected use of AI artwork in a new loading screen offered as an event reward.
Black Ops 6 is getting into the holiday spirit with a bunch of themed events and cosmetics. This comes off the back of Zombies Season 1 Reloaded which adds a new map, Wonder Weapons, and the limited-time Jingle Hells mode.
Most Black Ops 6 Zombies players are busying themselves with snapping up all the Citadel Des Morts Easter Eggs and attempting to acquire the new incantations. Yet while the pursuit has proven popular, Activision has drawn some heat in the process.
A new holiday-themed event reward based on the Jingle Hells Zombie mode has rubbed players the wrong way. Many have become suspicious that the image features AI-generated artwork and have leveled this accusation at Black Ops 6’s development team.
One of the Christmas themed loading screens added to Black Ops 6 today appears to have been created using AI. The zombie has 6 fingers. Lots of people have been suspicious of Call of Duty using AI recently and it appears they were suspicious for good reason. pic.twitter.com/FSe2ARBT6O
— ModernWarzone (@ModernWarzone) December 5, 2024
The Necroclaus loading screen is one of the in-game rewards for the Merry Mayhem event currently running in Black Ops 6 & Warzone. It’s earned by racking up 21,000 XP but players have noticed a peculiarity with the artwork.
Necroclaus appears to have six fingers in the image for the loading screen and, while it’s not uncommon for enemies in Zombies modes to have two heads, oddities with hands are a common indicator of AI-generated art. A post on X from ModernWarzone pointed out Necroclaus’ mutation and players are convinced that there’s something afoot (ahand?).
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“It’s not surprising they use AI to make stuff like this,” one user complained. “What’s more shocking is they apparently care so little … they released it as is instead of taking five minutes to fix it.”
“I wondered about them using AI in some of the bundle preview images,” another player admitted. “Seems confirmed now. Shameful.” We ran the image through a few basic AI detection tools ourselves and each turned up at least a 90% certainty that AI was used to create the image.
A closer look has raised some questions though. What players are pointing to as a sixth finger could easily be a piece of debris or some dangling skin from Necroclaus’ decay. Black Ops 6’s development team has yet to comment on this particular accusation but an investigation published in July, 2024 exposed previous use of AI tools in Call of Duty games, so this wouldn’t be a first.
