Vapor World Early Access Opens to 25% Positive Reviews, Dev Drops AI Cutscenes
The developer reversed its AI policy within a day of launch, pulling generative AI cutscenes from the game and restoring hand-made originals after negative reviews cited AI as a major immersion problem.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
Vapor World: Over The Mind, the 2D Souls-like from Korean developer ALIVE, entered Steam early access on August 18. User reviews sit at 25% positive out of 47 total, earning a Mixed rating. Negative reviews target generative AI cutscenes and audio. Director Young Kim responded on August 19, and patch 0.5.4 removed AI cutscenes and restored originals.
The game drew attention before release for hand-drawn 2D graphics and combat influenced by SEKIRO and Bloodborne. Wishlist registrations exceeded 100,000 in the week of August 19 alone, according to the developer.
Early access began August 18 on Steam. Reviews quickly turned negative, with criticism focused on cutscenes and audio using generative AI. Reviewers pointed out inconsistent character appearances in video and unnatural animation and audio that broke immersion.
Director Young Kim issued a statement on August 19. He said the team adopted AI to achieve expressions difficult with existing resources, but called the decision hasty. The team had originally created all cutscenes by hand and replaced them with AI versions after judging they could not express the complex story.
Patch 0.5.4 followed hours later. It removed all AI-generated cutscenes and restored the original content created before the replacement. The developer stated it will not use any generative AI cutscenes from now on.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.