According to Kotaku, Battlefield 6 faced a major backlash in December over cosmetics that appeared to be made with generative AI, prompting an EA investigation over the winter break. The controversy centered on items like an M4A1 emblem with two barrels and a bear with extra claws from a winter cosmetic pack. This led to a patch on Friday, labeled 1.1.3.6, which updated the “Objective Ace” and “Winter Warning” cosmetics to better fit the game’s visual identity. The update came after fans in early January also criticized the “Objective Ace” operator mask for looking nearly identical to the one worn by Call of Duty’s Ghost. EA has not confirmed or denied the use of AI in creating these items, only stating that the visuals have been adjusted.
The Quiet Fix And Loud Questions
So here’s the thing. EA’s patch notes are a masterclass in saying nothing. “Updated to better align with Battlefield’s visual identity” is corporate speak for “Yeah, you were right, that looked like garbage.” You can see the before-and-after of the Objective Ace mask in the official Battlefield Comm tweet. But the company is still refusing to answer the core question: was this AI slop? Their silence is pretty damning. It’s one thing to have a bug or a weird texture error. It’s another to have fundamental design flaws—like a gun with two barrels or a mask that’s a straight rip-off of a competitor’s iconic character—that scream “unchecked AI output” or, at best, criminally lazy human art direction.
The AI Denial That Wasn’t A Denial
This is where it gets messy. Last year, EA VP Rebecka Coutaz, who runs DICE, told the BBC point-blank that no generative AI would make it into the final game. Sounds definitive, right? But look closer. She only promised it wouldn’t be in the *final* product. She carefully left the door wide open for its use *during* development. That’s a huge loophole. Concepting, prototyping, generating placeholder assets—all of that could involve AI tools. The theory, as Kotaku reported, is that the insane volume of content needed for live-service games like Battlefield 6 creates pressure to cut corners. If an AI-generated concept or even a finished asset slips through a lax quality check, boom, you’ve got a two-barreled gun in a paid cosmetic pack. And let’s be real, as this Reddit thread shows, calling the Ghost mask an “homage” is generous. It’s a copy.
A Industry-Wide Slop Problem
Battlefield isn’t alone here. Call of Duty has had its own very public battles with AI-generated “garbage” ending up in its store. The entire industry is wrestling with this. CEOs like EA’s Andrew Wilson are publicly salivating over AI’s potential to “reshape” development and cut costs. But the tools are chaotic. They hallucinate details (extra claws, anyone?), they plagiarize styles, and they lack the coherent design logic a human artist brings. The real problem isn’t the tech itself—it’s the pipeline. When you prioritize speed and volume over quality and oversight, slop is the inevitable result. You get assets that don’t fit the game’s identity, or worse, legally dubious knock-offs. The patch fixes the symptom, but the disease—a rushed, quantity-over-quality content mill—is still very much there.
What Comes Next?
Basically, this is a warning shot. Players are now actively hunting for AI slop, and they’re good at finding it. A quiet patch a month later isn’t going to cut it. EA needs to be transparent. Did a third-party contractor use AI? Was there a breakdown in the approval process? And with EA poised to be sold to Saudi Arabia and other investors this summer, you have to wonder how this focus on “efficiency” will play out. Will it lead to more AI use, not less? The danger isn’t just ugly cosmetics. It’s the erosion of a game’s soul—that cohesive visual identity they claim to be protecting—replaced by a flood of cheap, generated assets. For a franchise trying to win back trust, that’s a huge risk.
