by Earlier today, we highlighted three games that had just joined Xbox Game Pass as part of the August 19th lineup, including a brand-new release in the form of a 2D souls-like platformer with the name of "Vapor World: Over The Mind".
We also mentioned at the time that the game had received "Negative" reviews on Steam due to its use of AI-generated elements, and the director has already issued a passionate statement that promises to remove all AI cutscenes by the weekend and replace them with "our own original content".
What's interesting is that the team had already created original content for the cutscenes but deemed the results to be "devastating", and therefore they turned to AI to try and "reach a level of expression our existing resources could not".
"The truth is, we spent a long time trying to tell this game's story with cutscenes made entirely by our own hands. The results were devastating every time. We came to believe we could not properly deliver this game's complex, difficult narrative that way, and that is why we turned to AI. But if that choice hurt your experience, the fault is not in the tool. It is in our own shortcomings."
"There is one more thing I want to be clear about, and it is actually the fortunate part. Every cutscene in this game was originally built as a full in-game cutscene. It was only recently that we began replacing them with AI-generated cutscenes, and what you are seeing right now is the middle of that transition. So if it looks like the effort is not there, that is a fair reading of what is on screen. Looking back, that replacement was the wrong call. But it is also the reason we can fix this quickly: the in-game versions already exist."
The director says it was a "hasty judgment" on their part to make the call to utilise AI cutscenes, and that although they expected some pushback on the decision, they weren't ready for just how big the controversy would be.
Nevertheless, they say they "make two promises" from now on - the game will never use AI-generated cutscenes from this point forward, and all the existing AI-generated cutscenes will be removed from the game entirely.
"We will begin the replacement right away, and we will have it done by this weekend. The in-game versions already exist, so this will not take long. We will share the details in this weekend's update."
As far as we know, this is the only AI-generated content in Vapor World: Over The Mind, and ultimately it just seems like an error of judgment rather than anything purposely lazy - developer ALIVE Inc. is a very small team made up of only a few people, and they clearly felt like their existing cutscenes weren't living up to what they'd hoped for.
At the same time, the backlash is understandable, and we don't want to be playing games with AI-generated cutscenes. The director has recognised that in a matter of hours and promised to fix it, so hopefully the controversy will be a thing of the past by the weekend and the "Negative" reviews start turning into "Positive" ones.