Neverness to Everness Replaces AI Slop With TV Static

Two flagged assets. One deleted animation. And the replacement? TV static with the audio still playing over it. That's where Neverness to Everness currently stands after developer Hotta Studio put out a response confirming it used AI-assisted tools during development, despite previously assuring at least one major content creator that no AI was involved.

Players on Reddit spotted earlier today that the AI-generated animation in the game's "Pink Paws Heist" mission has been stripped out entirely. Where there was once a short cutscene riddled with telltale AI artifacts, yellow colour casts, inconsistent movement, clashing art styles, there's now just a blank screen of static with the original audio playing underneath. It's a placeholder, presumably until Hotta Studio can redo the sequence by hand. As quick fixes go, it's almost comically blunt. I'd argue it's actually less immersive than the AI slop it replaced, which is an achievement of sorts.

In its statement on X, the studio framed the issue carefully: "Neverness to Everness is built on human creativity. The characters, stories, and world you experience are the work of artists, writers, and designers. AI-assisted tools were used only on a small number of background and environmental assets, not on the characters or stories that define this game." The team said it is "reviewing and reworking" both the Pink Paws Heist animation and a separate asset called "Clear Skies in Summer," though it didn't specify whether those reworked versions will be entirely human-made.

How it escalated

The controversy had been simmering since launch, with players scrutinising every corner of the open world for AI fingerprints. One comparison flagged a poster that appeared to closely mirror imagery from Makoto Shinkai's Weathering With You. But the real accelerant came from VTuber Ironmouse, who publicly cut ties with the game after claiming Hotta Studio told her team there was "no AI anywhere" in the project before she accepted a sponsorship deal. "Why are you f**king lying, bro?" she said on stream, before calling it the "fastest uninstall" of her life. Voice actress Meggie-Elise, who performed in the game, also spoke out, pledging to leave the project if the AI content wasn't addressed and removed.

When a streamer with Ironmouse's reach says a studio lied to her face about AI, and a voice actress in the game publicly threatens to walk, the pressure to respond becomes unavoidable. Hotta Studio's statement reads like damage control because it is damage control. The wording, calling AI use "small" and limited to "background and environmental assets," is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Players flagged an in-game animation, not a background texture. Whether that falls under Hotta's definition of "environmental" is the kind of semantic game that tends to make things worse, not better.

This fits a pattern that's becoming hard to ignore. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had to replace AI content after it reportedly cost the game an indie award. Larian caught heat for even suggesting placeholder AI use in Divinity and reversed course. Multiple studios, including Unknown Worlds on Subnautica 2, have started proactively declaring they won't use AI at all, just to avoid the conversation entirely. Hotta Studio chose a different path: use it, deny it to a sponsor, get caught, then swap the evidence for static. The original clip that kicked off the latest wave of scrutiny is still circulating widely, so the internet isn't going to forget this one quickly.

Neverness to Everness is available now on PS5, PC, and mobile devices.