XCOM spiritual successor Warhounds dumps its gen-AI portraits, and I'm breathing a sigh of relief

I've been watching Warhounds with keen interest for a while now, and one of my biggest gripes with the upcoming turn-based strategy game has just been tackled by developer Everplay. Citing XCOM and Jagged Alliance as its main inspirations, it boasts all the environmental tactics and squad specialization that you want, with a refreshing focus on careful planning and "honest physics" rather than random rolls. Its Steam Next Fest demo, however, was plagued by the presence of generative AI, and I'm very thankful to see the team responding to feedback.

"During the announcement, playtests, and demo, we received a lot of feedback about one specific issue: AI-generated character portraits." The Warhounds developer clearly states on its Steam page that these "are temporary placeholders for the playtest and demo versions and will be fully replaced once over 100 hand-made portraits are completed," and notes that there was no other use of gen-AI in the creation of Warhounds. Nevertheless, they stood out like a sore thumb - shiny, unrealistic, and completely at odds with the look of the game itself.

Clearly, the issue struck a nerve, because Everplay remarks that "nearly every second negative review mentioned the AI portraits specifically," despite them being listed as a placeholder. "So we decided to solve the problem properly," it announces. "Warhounds is officially moving away from AI-generated portraits. Our new solution is simple - and much better. We now create portraits directly from each character's in-game 3D model, using high resolution, improved skin shaders, and proper portrait lighting."

To my eyes, the new portraits are immediately a world better. They're in tune with the style of the rest of the game, and more closely reflect how the recruits actually look. It's a simple but effective solution, and I find myself wondering why it wasn't always the way. When you've put so much love and care into building everything else, slapping gen-AI on the top is like dumping sludge onto your cake just because you didn't have any icing to hand. I'd rather the portraits had been left blank.

The new system is even capable of handling custom recruits. When you manually customize a character's appearance, it takes their final model, temporarily drops them into the dedicated portrait scene with lighting and an appropriate pose, and captures a 'photo' of them to create a portrait that matches their current look. "No AI. No mismatch. Just your squad - exactly as you built it."

I'd like to thank the team at Everplay for listening to its community and actually responding, rather than simply brushing it off. It frees me up to focus on talking about all the exciting things Warhounds is bringing to the table: intense tactical action with intricately designed environments that encourage careful use of cover, line of sight, and flanking. A squad system where combining the right classes and equipment for each job is key to success. The ability for short-session sitdowns or intense, lengthy campaigns.

I'm particularly enthused about its accuracy system, where bullets are calculated individually and there are no random misses for your first shot on an exposed target at ideal range, one of XCOM's great sins. Warhounds even brings consequences on both the small scale, where your mercs will respond to your decisions and bear tension and grudges, and the grand, where allies and missions will shift based on your chosen actions and how well you execute upon them. Now, your squad will actually look the part as well.

Warhounds is planned to launch in 2026. You can wishlist it on Steam, where there's also a free demo available to download.

This latest news is yet another step in the right direction, and I'm hopeful that the grand-scale pushback against gen-AI assets will cause more developers to embrace the value of traditional placeholder assets again, like the wonderful hand-drawn scribbles of Slay the Spire 2. It's okay for things to look temporary and be a little scuffed.