The Alters Faces Backlash as Players Spot Sloppy Generative AI Use Without Disclosure

The Alters from 11 Bit Studios is facing backlash from players for using AI-generated in-game visuals and poorly edited text following the use of large language models (LLM) without disclosure.

At the time of writing, in the last 24 hours, the game has received over a dozen negative reviews on Steam, which emphasize players’ outrage over generative AI usage, contrary to Steam rules that require developers to indicate on the game’s page any information related to the utilization of AI for both marketing and development of the title.

Those negative reviews mostly highlight instances of AI usage in The Alters, such as background text errors, in-game icons and poorly edited translations. Notably, despite the negative tone of these reviews, some still praise the title as a good game, emphasizing that the outrage is primarily due to the undisclosed use of AI.

The most highlighted case of LLM usage in The Alters is a translation flop into Brazilian Portuguese, where in-game text contains elements typical of an AI prompt. The case was analyzed by game localization specialist Lucile Danilov in a LinkedIn post, resulting in two theories:

• Some translator took shortcuts and delivered some trash content.
• Someone on the developer’s side dumped missing lines into an unchecked LLM to save time.

On top of that, Danilov’s second theory was confirmed in the comment section of her LinkedIn post by a video game translator responsible for the majority of the Korean version. He confirmed that the same section of the Korean localization shows clear signs of having been run through an LLM without proper editing.

Developed and published by 11 Bit Studios, The Alters was released for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and PlayStation 5 on June 13, 2025. Despite the backlash at the time of writing, the game’s rating on Steam remains “Very Positive,” with 6,015 reviews.