New ‘game’ goes viral for incredible visuals but millions have been duped by AI
A new ‘game’ is going viral across social media, in no small part due to its enchanting visuals. However, it turns out it’s not actually real and millions have just been tricked by AI.
With Artificial Intelligence on the rise, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern the real from the fake. Be it totally fabricated ‘models’ tricking Instagram users or even AI-generated academic papers bogging down the scientific process, we’ve quickly seen a litany of issues pile up, not to mention the pollution debacle.
The gaming industry isn’t innocent in this situation either. Some games are using AI features, and other devs are convinced there’s already a lot more being generated rather than hand-crafted.
Now, a new example is exploding across the internet, but not for the reasons you’d expect. It turns out, a completely AI-generated clip has fooled millions into thinking it’s a real video game.
AI-generated video game goes viral
It started with a July 21 post from ‘de5imulate’ on X (formerly Twitter). The five-second clip shows what appears as a first-person game, with the protagonist holding a sword in one hand and a torch in the other.
The scale of the world is immediately noticeable, with a long, winding forest path leading to an enormous gothic castle.
In short order, the snippet caught traction and went viral across X. At the time of writing it’s already amassed a whopping 30 million impressions.
However, as the creator soon confirmed in the replies, the clip isn’t exactly real. It’s not a project they’d been actively working on, nor is it part of a real video game prototype. It’s quite simply the result of a string of words being thrown into an AI-generator.
While they labelled it “concept art,” in the replies, the original post itself has no disclosure of, well, anything really. No mention of AI use, and no word as to the source of the ‘artwork’.
“One of the most shameful things I see with AI, is people posting sh** like this without saying it’s AI on purpose to farm likes as if they’re the artist behind it and that they made this from scratch,” a real game dev said.
“Is this a game?” One user asked. “Maybe one day,” the poster said in response. In other replies, the original creator evidently shows no knowledge of the next steps in turning this AI-prompt into a real thing.
Midjourney was used to create this particular clip, and dozens more have been thrown online in the aftermath, quoting this original inspiration.
It’s even triggered a debate among actual game developers, with The Last Night creative Tim Soret chiming in to call it an “AI-invented visual style.
“Everybody wants it, and indie devs are rushing to prototype it and make it real,” he said. An actual game with this look would require “years of work.”
Others were quick to push back on the point, showcasing their actual work on real video game projects in a similar vein. Relics of the Oracle, has started going viral in its own right, as an “actual game in this style.” The same can be said for Eclipsium, a pixel art project oozing with style.
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