We’re nearing a point in video game design where AI will be almost inevitable. Every game that comes out in the next few years will have been made using generative tools, only really becoming a problem if they somehow make it into the final game. In fact, I predict we’ll become desensitized even to that, but until we do, we’ve got stories like the one in Neverness to Everness where fan outrage saw AI art apparently replaced with—drum roll please—more AI “art.”
According to Kotaku, this comes only a day after Neverness to Everness developers said they would be replacing AI assets that made it into the final build of the game, and to their credit, some of them seem to have already been patched out. However, one particular billboard that was of particular interest to players, while replaced, seems to still have AI art within it, meaning the devs simply generated a new image instead of creating an original replacement.
“Neverness to Everness is built on human creativity. The characters, stories, and world you experience are the work of artists, writers, and designers. AI-assisted tools were used only on a small number of background and environmental assets, not on the characters or stories that define this game,” the devs said yesterday, but it would appear that a small number of assets somehow got into the game twice.
X user ViviVovo pointed out this “replaced” AI-generated billboard image, which, instead of featuring an obviously AI-generated image of what looks like a Makoto Shinkai film, now has an advertisement for a soda can. “There are way too many different types of clouds, the shadows don’t make sense,” the user wrote about the new image, adding that there is “overall just a lot of extra unnecessary things happening for what should’ve been a low-effort background poster.”
Of course, Neverness to Everness is a gacha game, and these types of free-to-play games carrying loads of microtransactions are almost always going to be the worst offenders when it comes to AI. I don’t want to bash the effort the developers clearly put into the title, but I’m honestly not surprised to see so many AI assets making it into the final build, even multiple times and despite “patches.” Free-to-play games are bound to be made cheaply and quickly, and AI is genuinely the perfect tool to help developers of these types of games churn out stuff fast and without caring much for many “background” elements that can be considered unimportant.
I commend the devs of NtE for taking the steps necessary to remove generative assets that weren’t made by an actual human being and were actually very, very reminiscent of established art styles, like the mentioned Makoto Shinkai comparison. His movies are rich in detail and color and always incredibly well-animated, and having AI mimic his and his studio’s style is genuinely an affront to unique human artistry, the same as ChatGPT’s horrible so-called Ghibli filter that wound up appearing in some Call of Duty games.
At the end of the day, this will become an uphill battle. It honestly already is. But I love seeing that fans are yet to give in and allow this kind of behavior to permeate gaming, even if it comes from free-to-play gacha games.
