Update []: Almost certainly in response to the backlash it’s received, Let It Die: Inferno dev Supertrick Games has clarified its use of generative AI in an update on its Steam page.
While its comments don’t really change much, they do add much-needed context.
So, for the background elements where generative AI was used, the studio says: “The planning team developed the concepts and text, ensuring they matched the game’s world setting. Based on these ideas, the art team designed the background art and used an AI tool that observes copyright laws and only to generate rough base images, which were painted over, refined, and adjusted by hand.”
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With that much work done after the fact, it does raise the question why not just design them from hand to begin with? It shared some examples, which you can see through the link.
It goes on to explain that AI voices were used for characters who, in the lore of the story, are synthetic AI lifeforms. Thus, it points out that its use of generative AI is fitting. It also adds that the voices were not “derived from or modelled after any human performers, ensuring no copyright concerns”.
Finally, it adds that an “AI-based music editor was used to generate” some music stems, some of which were edited while others were recreated from scratch.
In a further statement on X (or Twitter) it said it believes “creators should lead and carry out creative work”.
So clearly, anything that’s been made with generative AI in this game has been massively edited with human input later, but it still begs the question whether the tech’s actually speeding up development if it’s basically recreating everything after the fact.
Original Story: We’re not sure there was an enormous amount of interest in upcoming roguelike Let It Die: Inferno anyway, but publisher GungHo Interactive may have torpedoed interest in the game with its latest Steam page update.
Valve now requires developers to disclose whether their games use generative AI, and in the case of the aforementioned, it may be more useful to describe which parts were actually made by a human instead.
“AI generated content has been used and then edited by our team for certain parts of the in-game voices, music, and graphics,” the disclaimer reads.
Among the assets created by AI are “background signboard textures, record illustrations, InfoCast videos, and voices and music”.
The game’s been developed by Super Trick, a company based in Japan which also worked on the original Let It Die game.
Obviously, it’s not the only game using AI, as evidenced by Call of Duty recently. But this does strike us as a particularly egregious case.
Has this altered your interest in the game? How do you feel about paying for games with assets created using AI? Let us know below.