11 bit studios Officially Responds to Undisclosed AI Use in The Alters

Recently, 11 bit studios has found itself in a bit of a controversy regarding The Alters. Their latest launch came out on the 13th of June, and it's been receiving a lot of praise from players and critics alike, but its latest controversy has caused some issues for the team.

The allegations came in through Bluesky, as users found prompt responses scattered in some confined sections of the game, including some text (that was supposed to be a placeholder) that reads the following:

Sure, here's a revised version focusing purely on scientific and astronomical data:

 

Image credit to u/EarthlingKira on r/TheAlters subreddit.

This wasn't an isolated case, however, as some "last-minute movies" created for the game didn't pass through official translation agencies, instead being translated utilising AI. The Brazilian Portuguese text says:

Claro! O texto traduzido para o português brasileiro é:Toda conversa que duas pessoas podem ter, certo? Então nós—

Image credit to @zitosilva.bsky.social on Bluesky.

Translated, this reads, "Of course! The text translated for Brazilian Portuguese is:...", which shows that the response to the prompt was left as part of the localisation subtitles. This isn't an isolated instance, according to some users, as the issues have been found from players bringing it up throughout their playthroughs.

11 bit studios has responded to the allegations by confirming that these movies were translated with AI, alongside the previous text being found as placeholders that the team meant to change. Their statement hasn't been received with a lot of support, as players on Bluesky have shared their distaste for the use.

The main issue with this isn't that 11 bit studios used AI for their game and translation, but rather that this has also gone into Steam without an official AI disclosure. Even at the time of writing, several days after the team was caught using AI, no new disclaimers have been added to Steam.

After this became mainstream, thanks to a Eurogamer post by Vikki Blake on the topic, The Alters has seen a dip in players. While its length and longevity are partly to blame for this — 18 hours isn't too long for two weeks of playtime — it has seen about a 40% drop ever since the information reached the mainstream audience.

It's impossible to tell how much of this player drop is due to the controversy and how much of it is due to players finishing their runs. Even the reviews on Steam haven't been impacted severely, so it's difficult to gauge how much this has affected them.