Neverness to Everness, the new open-world gacha game developed by Hotta Studio and published by Perfect World, released late last month on April 29, and things are already off to a rough start. While the hack-and-slash RPG is being praised for its generous gacha pull rates and its shiny graphics, dozens of examples of suspected generative-AI use for videos and art are dragging the otherwise positive reception down. The sentiment has now been amplified following the announcement that Twitch VTuber Ironmouse is pulling out of her sponsored Neverness to Everness streams, as she claims the developers lied to her about its “blatant” use of generative AI.
Fans have spotted several instances of what they suspect is genAI use in Neverness to Everness, including an animated video during one of its opening missions, an “18-minute generative AI anime short film” present in the in-game theatre, and even a billboard advert for a fake anime film that looks suspiciously similar to the real anime film Weathering with You.
Not only is the game still full of Gen AI on launch, they straight up stole this shot from Weathering with You and ran it through AI. #nte https://t.co/uUAUYiICfN pic.twitter.com/jwWhu8HJZG
— Ezie (@HSC_Ezie) April 30, 2026
As spotted by Gosu Gamers, Ironmouse stated during a stream on May 3 that she’d be pulling out of her Neverness to Everness sponsored content, as developers Hotta Studio had “assured” the streamer that no genAI’d content would be present in the full release.
“Whenever I get sent an offer for a sponsor or something, I always make sure that I tell people ‘can you make sure–double, triple, quadruple-check–that this does not have AI in it. I will not accept it if it does,’” Ironmouse stated during the stream. “And then, [Hotta Studio] assured me ‘no, don’t worry, you’re good, it’s fine.’…and then I find out, it’s not fine?”
“There were certain things that I saw, where it’s just like, ‘Bro, you cannot sit here and lie and say that this is not it,’ because this is what it is!” she continued. “Like, you can’t lie! What do you think? I don’t have eyes?!”
isnt this the most obvious usage of gen ai 😭 nte isnt even hiding it pic.twitter.com/DjXCIsdqUm
— 𐐪hourly nicole𐑂 (@hrlynicole) May 3, 2026
Another prominent VTuber known as Shylily quit her playthrough of Neverness to Everness mid-stream, as she stated that she wanted to “look into” its suspected use of genAI before “promoting” it any further. Likewise, prominent anime voice actor Meggie-Elise, who is listed in Neverness to Everness’ credits, stated in a post on X that they’d “recently found out that a game” they had lent their voice to “has been using AI and has been dishonest about it.”
“I want to be clear that I do not support generative AI in any creative field, including voiceover, art, writing, or music,” continued Meggie-Elise. “If this is not addressed and removed, I will not be continuing work with this team.”
Developer Hotta Studio and publisher Perfect World have yet to issue a public statement.