A small AI insert in The Alters sparks a big debate because developer 11 Bit Studios only revealed it after the fact.
A small detail in the acclaimed sci-fi game The Alters is currently making big waves: The developers at 11 Bit Studios are at the center of a heated AI debate after the use of generative AI was discovered by observant players. The developers themselves are now talking about a mistake – and are taking action.
One placeholder too many
What was discovered in the first place? The first revelation concerns a text fragment that should never have seen the light of day in the final version.
In a background image on a console, players found a generic AI response: Sure, here’s a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data.
– a classic prompt remnant, as we know it from ChatGPT.
Did The Alters (captain) use a little bit of AI?
byu/EarthlingKira inTheAlters
Even more explosive is the second find: The studio used AI translations for the localization of some in-game parody films, which are used in the game to lighten the mood of the clone protagonists.
The reaction from 11 Bit Studios
After some angry reactions on social media, the studio issued a detailed statement and openly acknowledged the mistakes.
The use of AI text in the background asset was an oversight and never intended for the finished game
, it said. They have since reviewed the issue and are working on a correction:
We’ve heard many accusations about the use of AI-generated content in The Alters and feel it’s important to explain our approach and give you more info. […]
During production, an AI-generated text for a graphic asset that was intended to be a background texture was used as a placeholder by one of our graphic designers. […] Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was inadvertently left in the game. We have checked the whole thing thoroughly and found that it was an isolated incident. The element in question is currently being updated. […] We don’t want to play down the situation, but we also want to make it clear that it only has a minor impact on your gaming experience.
11 Bit also comments on the localization of the films: The use of AI was a short-term emergency solution, as they wanted to offer the clips fully translated at launch. A subsequent localization hotfix with professional translation is already in the works:
In addition, a few licensed films were added in the final development phase, which the ages can watch in the social area of the base. […] Due to the extremely limited time, we decided not to involve our translation partners and have these videos localized with AI […] It was always our intention to involve our trusted translation agencies as part of our post-release localization hotfix to ensure that these texts are treated with the same care and quality as the rest of the game. This process is now underway and the updated translations are being implemented.
To give you a better understanding of how small this part of the overall narrative of the game is: these few external movies comprise about 10,000 words out of a total of 3.4 million words in all languages of the game, which is only 0.3% of the total text. The alternative would have been to release these specific dialogs in English only, which we believe would have been a worse experience for non-English speakers.
Small number, big effect
Objectively speaking, the proportion of AI in The Alters is negligible at 0.3 percent: the automatically translated movie texts are not central to the gameplay, nor do most players even notice the AI error in the background image.
However, this raises the question of why this minimal intervention was concealed at all: On the game’s Steam page, the developers have at no time stated the AI use, even though Valve now explicitly requires disclosure of such content.
But what do you think? Is a retrospective apology enough or is the lack of disclosure a breach of trust that is more serious than the actual use of AI? Let us know in the comments section!