Level-5 apologises for AI use in its showcase videos

Level-5 has apologised for using generative AI in footage shown during its LEVEL5 VISION presentation, after viewers noticed the technology in videos featuring games including Professor Layton and Yo-Kai Watch. CEO Akihiro Hino says the company used AI to make the showcase more spectacular, but insists its released games are still built around human creativity.

What's actually going on

My Nintendo News reports that Hino addressed the backlash on X after the presentation. In a statement translated from Japanese, he said Level-5 had incorporated the latest AI technology into parts of the production process as an experiment, because the team wanted to make the event's videos more visually striking. He apologised to viewers who found that uncomfortable.

Hino also drew a line between presentation footage and the games themselves. He said scenarios, character designs and fundamental settings are created entirely by people, while the company's AI experiments are aimed primarily at efficiency work such as converting human-made artwork into 3D models. He promised that careless or unrefined AI-generated output would not be incorporated into released games.

The statement says Level-5 hopes AI-assisted efficiency improvements will help reduce the development time for major games from around five years to two. That is a company ambition, not a demonstrated production result, and the apology makes clear that this presentation crossed a line for some of the audience the studio is trying to win back.

Why you should care

The distinction between production assistance and generated creative content matters, but so does presentation. A showcase is part of how a company sells its games, and viewers are entitled to ask whether the images selling a human-made game were themselves human-made. Level-5's clarification may reassure people about the finished products, but it does not erase the trust problem created by using AI without explaining it first.

Our opinion

Level-5's apology is better than pretending nobody noticed, but the lesson is obvious: tell people where AI is being used before they have to identify the fingerprints themselves. If the games remain human-led, show that work with confidence. Marketing should make players excited about the developers' ideas, not leave them wondering which parts were assembled by a model in the first place.