AI in video games is a caustic enough subject that Valve requires developer disclosure if a title utilizes the generative technology. This way, people who have qualms about AI or its impact can opt out of purchasing anything that uses the genAI. One developer, however, is saving everyone from the moral quandary in the first place by just deleting their game altogether.
Hardest is a free-to-play roguelike on Steam that was released in the summer of 2025 with the tagline, “stop time, summon tsunamis, shoot with bubble guns, feed cards to mimic, collect rare negative cards!” Except for a user who says the game helped him bond with his son, Hardest mostly got a negative reception. “I assume the whole thing is AI slop,” one reviewer wrote.
You’d think flopping like this would be the end of the story, but half a year later, Rakuel, the developer, has undergone a revelation. On Jan. 10, the indie creator posted an update to Hardest announcing that he would pull the game from the platform by the end of the month.
Meh - sounds like they saved some money by not going heavy into custom assets.
Seems like for a first pass at an indie game you should use asset packs and/or Gen AI. If the game has legs - you make another pass with a bigger investment into it.
Obviously if you enjoy the asset/model/whatever aspect then delve deeper into it.
Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about celebraing an indie dev deleting their game while the biggest games such as arc raiders succeed despite overt ai use that actually displaces voice actors at the company.
The developer gives a pretty decent reason for the deletion, imo:
There’s nothing he can do about Arc Raider’s success, but taking ownership of what he did, I gotta say, respect.
I would never judge anyone for using AI to fill in the parts they need to realize their project vision that they otherwise simpy couldn’t (without putting in a lot more effort into a thing they probably don’t really enjoy), but doing this is still a statement and pretty cool to do.
Not that I’ll ever be motivated enough to actually finish a project, but I’ve thought about the art aspect of making a game, and eventually figured if I’d need to commission more than I can afford, I’d be morally fine with genAI if the game is either free or I use a large portion of profits (if there are any lol) to hire artists to gradually replace the art.
Though I also refuse to give a single cent to all the companies profiting off this so any image gen I’ll ever do will be local on my pc (or for free on some service, I guess).
I don’t think you deserve this many down votes for this take, but I’ll provide a counterpoint. Not being able to afford a real artist is not as large a barrier as you think.
https://balatrowiki.org/w/Music
And here it is being played at the Game Awards.
It depends on the project, I think. If you require hundreds of pieces to make the concept work (and such concepts have floated in my mind) even hiring an amateur would get pretty expensive. If it’s just small scope art (and for most games it will be) I agree, it can be relatively cheap. Though I’m still privileged in being able to afford that, some people couldn’t even really spare 200€ for a project that, statistically, is unlikely to make even half of that back.