Foamstars is an upcoming game from Square Enix that’s already received a bunch of criticism for being a blatant Splatoon clone with a different coat of paint. Admittedly, upon watching the trailer way back when it was announced I couldn’t help but draw the same conclusion. It’s okay to borrow some elements from another series when you plan to innovate the formula in some aspects. Look no further than Palworld’s massive launch success for proof of that. But when the core gameplay appears to be a direct copy or worse, a lesser version of a beloved established game series, you’d probably be in for a bad time. And the public perception of Foamstars just took another big hit thanks to Square Enix publicly stating that they used Midjourney to incorporate AI art assets into the game.

The public opinion on AI taking jobs is exactly as predicted by Detroit: Become Human. Everybody hates AI taking creative gigs away from humans except for the most specific of use cases. The Finals took on massive heat online for using an AI announcer to spout lines off during combat instead of a real human’s voice acting with several prominent figures in the industry and a hoard of fans condemning the game. Whether or not it did much to affect the game’s release is up for debate as it did hurt the reputation a bit, but the high player count nowadays and the fact that I don’t believe the AI voice was ever replaced indicates a lack of care or incentive to change it. Square argued that overall their use of AI is relatively minor and is only intended to save time and money on creating small assets like album covers, not on developing the core gameplay. Some fans were not very convinced, arguing that it’s exactly stuff like spending extra time on the small details that separate okay games from good and great ones. No matter where you stand, it’s safe to say that this title with an already low public opinion for looking creatively bankrupt has now unintentionally reinforced that assumption.

But does Splatoon offer a DJ Duck?

My prediction is that this game will be released, see a few weeks of a player base peeping it out, and then slowly fade away into oblivion just like that weird MMO game Square Enix attempted to pedal a few years ago, Babylon’s Fall. Lord knows Splatoon isn’t struggling in sales and I don’t see much here to shift the market. Are you planning to play Foamstars? Do you think it’ll be unique enough to garnish players or a soon forgotten game? Is using AI art in small amounts okay for game development, or should the whole product be AI-free? Does the standard change for indie devs versus big corporations? Load your paint gun, splatter some color, and make a masterpiece (with the help of Midjourney of course) in the comments below!