Ironmouse cancels Neverness to Everness sponsorship over AI use controversy

Ironmouse said Neverness to Everness developers assured her team the game contained no AI-generated content

Ironmouse has publicly criticised Neverness to Everness after allegations surfaced online claiming the game used AI-generated assets despite previous assurances to her team that no artificial intelligence tools were involved.

The controversy began after players shared screenshots and clips from promotional material and gameplay footage that they believed showed signs of AI-generated imagery.

One widely circulated post compared a scene from the game to visuals from Weathering with You, while another pointed to unusual distortions in an in-game television advertisement.

During a recent livestream, Ironmouse said the developers had assured her representatives that AI was not used in the project before she agreed to the sponsorship.

“They had told my people that there’s no AI in it. It’s so crazy,” she said. “Bro, I would never have known. I didn’t know until I saw that thing on Twitter after the stream.”

She later added, “They told my sponsor people and said, ‘we do not have AI in anything, there’s no AI anywhere.’ And it’s like, why are you f**king lying, bro?”

Ironmouse confirmed she had since removed the game from her system, describing it as the “fastest uninstall” of her life. She also explained that her team specifically asks companies to clarify whether AI tools are used before she accepts promotional partnerships.

“Can you make sure, double triple, quadruple check that this does not have AI in it. I will not accept it if it does,” she said while describing her sponsorship process.

At the time of publication, developer Hotta Studio had not publicly confirmed whether AI-generated assets appear in the game’s final build.

However, the studio had previously addressed concerns regarding AI use in a developer interview, stating that “our core assets and character portraits will never touch AI.”

The developers also explained that AI tools were used during early experimentation phases for “atmosphere renderings” and preliminary visual references during development.