The latest Nintendo Direct was a Toad house full of treasure, from Metroid Ravenous to a new Kirby game. But between all these exciting announcements were the two Level-5 trailers for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, and Yo-kai Watch 2: Haunted Domain.
Fans immediately took to social media to accuse Level-5 of using generative AI for the trailers, and unlike the tools often do, they weren't hallucinating. Studio president Akihiro Hino quickly responded on X, confirming the suspicions and apologizing for making fans feel "uncomfortable." He explained that it was an experiment "to make the presentation more spectacular."
Spectacularly, it failed, and now, Level-5 is looking to scale back its AI use. As reported by Ascii, the company has assured fans that it will use AI for efficiency improvements going forward, and will now "avoid direct use" in player-facing marketing.
However, addressing the Yo-kai Watch 2 criticism directly, Level-5 clarified that the power lines and vending machines presumed to be AI-generated were actually drawn by designers, with the oddities simply being a case of human error. The company nevertheless admitted to “careless AI use” elsewhere in its promotional material.
It's a step in the right direction, considering the ethical implications of AI use - from the environmental impact it has to the global computing shortages it contributes to and, of course, how it scrapes artists' work without consent. But it's also worth being skeptical. In 2025, Akihiro Hino spoke about AI in game development at the Top Game Creators Academy, where he claimed that "around 80–90% of code is written by AI, and then fixed up and finalized by human programmers."
He surmised that "80-90% of games are made by artificial intelligence," and so developers must hone their "aesthetic sense," i.e. the difference between helpful and harmful AI use.
That stat is almost certainly hyperbolic, but it does indicate how Level-5 views AI, and how deeply it expects AI to become embedded in game development. So while the studio may dial back its use of AI in marketing, there's still a big question mark over what's happening inside its games.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/level-5-responds-ai-use-scale-back/
