Over the past weekend word started circulating that The Alters includes some assets that were created using AI. This includes at least once use of an environmental art asset created using generative AI, in addition to using AI for foreign language localization translations. Fans not only took issue with the use of AI in the game but also the fact that the use of AI was not disclosed on Steam. The Steam page for The Alters was added after Valve updated the AI disclosure policy for Steam games, but fans still feel as though The Alters' use of AI should have been publicly disclosed.
11 bit studios, the development team behind The Alters, today admitted that generative AI was indeed used during the development process. They say that the AI assets were either meant to be temporary or they were used due to time constraints. They continue to say that they are working to update the impacted assets.
The two confirmed uses of generative AI were first discovered about a week ago through Reddit.
For those that have trouble seeing it, the highlighted text in the image says, "Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data." This is identical to the responses given by AI when responding to a user prompt.
Another obvious use of AI in The Alters came via the subtitles on the Brazilian Portuguese localization. This one was shared through Bluesky.
There it is, in all its glory (translated in alt text)
— Steven Flow (@w indblow.org) June 28, 2025 at 12:58 PM
[image or embed]
The subtitle translates to, "Sure! The text translated to Brazilian Portuguese is: Every conversation two people can have, right? So we-"
11 bit studios issued a lengthy statement today in response to the accusations.
AI-generated assets were used strictly as temporary WIPs during the development process and in a very limited manner. Our team has always prioritized meaningful, handcrafted storytelling as one of the foundations of our game.
During production, an AI-generated text for a graphic asset, which was meant as a piece of background texture, was used by one of our graphical designers as a placeholder. This was never intended to be part of the final release. Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was mistakenly left in the game. We have since conducted a thorough review and confirmed that this was an isolated case, and the asset in question is being updated.
During production, an AI-generated text for a graphic asset, which was meant as a piece of background texture, was used by one of our graphical designers as a placeholder. This was never intended to be part of the final release. Unfortunately, due to an internal oversight, this single placeholder text was mistakenly left in the game. We have since conducted a thorough review and confirmed that this was an isolated case, and the asset in question is being updated.
As for the use of AI in the localization translations, here is what 11 bit studios had to say about that.
In addition to that, a few licensed movies that the alters can watch in the social area of the base were added at the final stage of development. While those were externally produced, our team was not involved in the creative process, and these required additional last-minute translations. Due to extreme time constraints, we chose not to involve our translation partners and had these videos localized using AI to have them ready on launch. It was always our intention to involve our trusted translation agencies after release as part of our localization hotfix, to ensure those texts would be handled with the same care and quality as the rest of the game. That process is now underway, and updated translations are being implemented.
To give you a better understanding of what a small part of the overall scope of the game’s narrative layer they are, those few external movies are approximately 10k words out of 3.4 million across all languages in the game, or just 0.3% of the overall text. The alternative was to release those specific dialogues in English only, which we believed would be a worse experience for non-English speakers. In hindsight, we acknowledge this was the wrong call. Even more so, no matter what we decided, we should have simply let you know.
To give you a better understanding of what a small part of the overall scope of the game’s narrative layer they are, those few external movies are approximately 10k words out of 3.4 million across all languages in the game, or just 0.3% of the overall text. The alternative was to release those specific dialogues in English only, which we believed would be a worse experience for non-English speakers. In hindsight, we acknowledge this was the wrong call. Even more so, no matter what we decided, we should have simply let you know.
The studio's statement concludes by saying, "We remain committed to transparency in how we make our games." That said, if they were as committed to transparency as they claim, 11 bit should have disclosed prior to the game's launch that AI was used for some of the localization translations.
