The Animal Crossing-like cozy life sim Heartopia is one of the biggest new games on Steam this month. It’s also made with AI-generated content according to a new disclosure by the developers.
Heartopia is developer and publisher XD International’s answer to the question, “What if Animal Crossing was a chibi anime?” It dropped on January 17 following a wave of closed betas in both November and December 2025. Concurrent players peaked at over 35,000.
Reviews have been mixed, though. It currently sits at only a 66 percent positive rating on Steam. And many of the negative responses from players on Valve’s platform are taking issue with the developer not disclosing their use of AI-generated artwork in Heartopia.
“This game contains Generative AI (used to generate the puzzles), which they didn’t disclose until the accusations of it surfaced,” writes user parupa206. The use of AI wasn’t made public until GAMINGbible’s Richard Breslin emailed Heartopia’s UK PR team earlier this week. A statement from the developer appeared on Discord not that long after.
“Monetization Content in Heartopia does not include AI-generated materials,” read part of the message to fans. “Should any AI-assisted content be used in the game in the future, it will be announced in advance. Marketing materials produced outside the game, including those created in collaboration with third-party suppliers, are not covered by the scope of this disclosure.”
Since then, Heartopia’s Steam page has been updated to include a newly added “AI Generated Content Disclosure” section, which states that “AI is used in the puzzle gameplay to reinterpret and redraw in-game snapshot images” and that AI is also “used in in-game chat to help players understand different languages.”
The devs have seemingly not apologized for not disclosing their use of AI-generated assets on Steam in any of the official Heartopia channels that I could find, and, given how blatantly obvious its usage appears to be in its puzzle minigame, I’m not sure how they ever thought they’d get away with not disclosing this in the first place.
