PlayStation exclusive shooter Foamstars will feature AI-generated artwork, Square Enix has confirmed, with Foamstars producer Kosuke Okatani clarifying to VGC that "in terms of the content of the game, this makes up about 0.01% or even less."
The assets in question are supposedly in-game album covers for the soundtrack, so a significant portion of the game has still been created by hand as confirmed in a statement from Square Enix provided to VGC, claiming that: “AI was used in the creation of the in-game album covers for the music featured in the Foamstars’ soundtrack. As developers, we’re always looking at new technologies to see how they can assist with game development.
“In this instance, we experimented with Midjourney using simple prompts to produce abstract images. We loved what was created and used them as the final album covers players will see in the game. Everything else was created entirely by our development team.”
In addition to this, Okatani also explained: "All of the core elements in Foamstars, the core gameplay, and the things that make the game enjoyable, those are all made by hand."
So while Foamstars does feature elements of AI-generated art, rest assured that developers have worked on the vast majority of the game and it only makes up an incredibly small portion of what Foamstars has to offer.
But, that doesn't take away from the frustration of some players discovering that tools like Midjourney have been used in possible replacement of developers - especially following a New Year's letter from Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu who reaffirmed that he wants the company "to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions," which understandably hasn't sat well with folks such as artists and creators on social media.
We've got a list of all the best FPS games if you want something with just as much competition. However, our guide to the best PS5 games may also be of interest if you're looking for titles to bolster your library on the console.
