Neverness to Everness faces backlash after accusations of rampant AI use

I have been pretty clear with my excitement for Neverness to Everness, like with my desire to commit the crimes. However, it appears that NTE is not squeaky clean either. They haven’t broken out of prison or anything of that ilk. Instead, there are rumblings that the company has used AI.

If you have not been on the internet for the past few years, a lot of people have issues with AI for a multitude of reasons, including myself. They range from massive energy consumption, costing people jobs, right down to the results, sometimes just suck. AI art in particular. Pick your poison; however, NTE appear to be using AI for artistic assets.

As comprehensively covered over on GameSpot, many users have been flagging things that don’t seem to be of an AI origin. A TwiX user whose name I won’t repeat here noted that there is an AI-generated video of Weathering with You shown in-game, even after this was complained about in the beta.

Vocal opposition from players and talent alike

The same user posted that two popular streams, Ironmouse and Shylily, are distancing themselves from NTE on AI grounds. Ironmouse has dropped her sponsorship deal, claiming her team was lied to about AI inclusion, and Shylily ended her stream early after discovering AI use.

It is not just players having an issue; even talent who worked on the game are suitably perturbed. Voice Actor Meggie-Elise put out a comment claiming they do not support AI and will cease working with Hotta Studio if the offending products are not removed. The developers have yet to comment on the issues, although with this much evidence, they can’t really claim otherwise.

Presuming this is true, and it is hard not to believe that, this would be a huge shame. Neverness to Everness seemed like a rather interesting, ambitious project; however, it would be hard to support any company that used AI in this day and age. We just have to hope for that bubble to burst sooner rather than later.