Neverness To Everness Faces Allegations of Swapping One GenAI Art for Another

Less than a day after the developers of Neverness to Everness announced plans to “rework” the AI-generated images in their newly launched open-world gacha game, a fresh patch has been released. It appears that some of the “flagged assets” have indeed been swapped out. However, some players suspect that the game’s most infamous genAI image has simply been replaced with another genAI creation.

About a week after Twitch VTuber Ironmouse revealed she was stepping back from her Neverness to Everness sponsorship due to the developers allegedly assuring her that the game would not feature genAI assets—only for her to discover otherwise—the official account for the game stated that developer Hotta Games was “already reviewing and reworking” the flagged AI assets.

With the latest patch for Neverness to Everness now live, it seems Hotta Games has removed at least some of the contentious assets. Yet, some fans believe that the most notorious example, an in-game billboard that closely resembled promotional art for the anime film Weathering with You, has been replaced with an AI-generated image of a soda can.

“I guess it didn’t matter enough because the assets you replaced are STILL AI generated. What is the point if you’re just going to keep lying to your playerbase?” one player remarked.

“There are way too many different types of clouds, the shadows don’t make sense…and overall just a lot of extra unnecessary things happening for what should’ve been a low-effort background poster,” commented user ViviVovo.

While the new replacement image does exhibit some characteristics of AI-generated art, it would be odd for Hotta Games to swap one AI creation for another, especially since they have removed other pieces of genAI content in this update, such as the video that played before the Pink Paws Heist mission, which has now been replaced with a static TV placeholder.

If the new image is indeed AI-generated, it raises questions about whether the decision to replace the original art was driven by public backlash or concerns over its resemblance to promotional material for Weathering with You. After all, it’s unlikely that the copyright holders of the film were thrilled about the similarities.