Vapor World: Over The Mind, an indie Soulslike Metroidvania developed by the five-person studio Alive Inc, has faced significant player backlash following its early access launch on August 19, not for its gameplay or art style, but for its use of artificial intelligence in cutscenes. The game, which had garnered 100,000 wishlists prior to launch largely based on its demo, saw its community focus shift away from its intended strengths towards criticism of its AI-generated visual narrative elements. This led to a majority of its Steam reviews being marked as "mostly negative."
Many players expressed disappointment, with one prominent Steam review stating that the generative AI failed to maintain character model consistency even in the initial cutscenes. The sentiment highlights a growing skepticism among players regarding the use of AI in game development, particularly when it appears to be a cost-saving measure. "I support people not robots," the review continued, advocating for developers to either achieve their desired aesthetic with human artists or wait until AI technology can produce indistinguishable results.
The studio director, Young Kim, acknowledged the backlash in a statement, admitting that the decision to use AI was a "hasty judgment." He explained that the AI was initially chosen with the belief that it could achieve a level of expression beyond the studio's existing resources, allowing the team to focus more on the core game mechanics. However, he conceded that the AI-generated cutscenes, which have since been replaced, did not meet the expected standard and were noticeably inferior to the in-game art. "Unless AI takes one more leap and reaches a point where no one can tell the difference, what I believed was still closer to an ideal than a reality," Kim stated. "I expected some of you would be disappointed by our use of AI. I did not expect it to become this big."
Alive Inc's situation is not unique, as other studios like Larian Studios and Sandfall Interactive have also faced public criticism for their use of AI, subsequently withdrawing or modifying their implementation. While Vapor World: Over The Mind is reported to be a solid game at its core, the controversy underscores a current player intolerance for developers using generative AI to cut corners. The studio has since replaced the AI-generated cutscenes with human-made assets over the past weekend, in an attempt to appease player concerns.