Let It Die: Inferno Review

I have never been as disappointed in a game studio as I am now. To quantify this, I hope to explain to you, dear reader, exactly what Let It Die meant to me as a game, as a work of art, and why the sequel is abhorrent garbage shat out by a machine that disgusts and disappoints me.

When I first received Let it Die: Inferno for review, I did (or rather, didn't do) something that I'm not particularly proud of. I didn't do my due diligence. In today's game development landscape, I always scan the Steam page or do a quick search online to see if any generative AI assets were used in the game. I did not do this for Inferno, mostly because I was too excited to play a new Let It Die, but also partially because I didn't want to believe one of my favorite developers would do such a thing. I love Let It Die and Supertrick to pieces, so the thought never crossed my mind. 

Let It Die released in 2016 and was, at first glance, a pretty bog-standard soulslike. However, as you played the game, it revealed its true nature fairly rapidly: an industrial punk aesthetic featuring a wide range of musical talents tied to a roguelite soulslike experience. You would choose your body, each with different ranks, stats, and passives, load it up with gear, and take the elevator to whatever floor you wanted in the Tower of Barbs. Along the way, you'd deal with aggressive monsters, Haters (NPC-controlled shadows of other players), and an incredibly funny and grotesque cast of bosses. Eclectic characters like Uncle Death, Kiwako, and Meijin added a lot of humor and flavor to this otherwise brutal, horrific world that you were now tasked with exploring.

I know I use hyperbole a fair amount, but I genuinely mean this next sentence: there is nothing, and I mean nothing, more exciting & energetic, than rushing through floor after floor while the incredible Let It Die OST plays. Dropkicking Haters while Universe (Let It Die) wails triumphantly, or navigating Max Sharp's death train while Aural Vampire - Let It Die fills my speakers with raw emotional sounds -- that's what Let It Die means to me. You see, Akira Yamaoka (yes, that Akira Yamaoka), has gone on record in interviews stating that the intended goal of contracting so many Japanese indie bands was to help them get exposed to the international audience at large. It's how international fans found his music (via Silent Hill), after all, and he wanted to spread some of that around to other artists. That's why you have artists like TOTALFAT, Kiba of Akiba, MOP of HEAD, FLiP, and yes, Survive Said The Prophet all in your in-game radio -- so you can jam out to music made by actual people while you beat the shit out of Haters.

So, knowing all of this, and listening to the above-linked tracks, let me ask you a question. Does it make any amount of sense to replace all that effort and talent and genuine goodwill with AI slop? Because that's what Let It Die: Inferno does, and the results are beyond disappointing. Iron Perch, your home base, has a background track that is AI-generated, and there is no radio or alternative tracks to listen to as far as I could discover. At first, I thought it was locked behind the tutorial (Let It Die did this), but after clearing the tutorial, the first floor, and the second floor, nothing unlocked. The field music is supposedly not AI-generated, but a dull techno beat that occasionally rises in tenor and energy as time progresses does not replace the variety of incredible rock, pop, metal, and techno music Let It Die had.

That's not the extent of the AI usage either -- the Steam disclaimer states that AI voicework is used as well, and immediately I thought of Gram B. If you played Deathverse (a short-lived Let It Die arena brawler that unfortunately suffered a lot of server issues), you'd recognize Gram B as the elderly version of Queen B, the Deathverse queen and mascot. Queen B had a distinct voice and contributed a lot of energy to Deathverse, so naturally, when I heard her new voice, I was shocked: not just the elderly tone, but the fact that the voice actor seemingly didn't know how to string sentences together or control their pitch. At first, I thought that it was AI-generated, but if the disclaimer is to be believed, it's instead just poor voice direction. However, Mom the healbot is voiced by AI. The argument that "she's a robot, it makes sense" doesn't hold any water when previous entries featured robotic characters but used actual voice actors. Could you not apply a robotic-sounding filter to an actual voice actor, Supertrick?

The InfoCast puppets, originally something I thought was kinda charming but, again, somewhat "off", is also AI-generated according to the disclaimer. The devs state the puppets are voiced by AI because "they're mysterious life forms", but again, that doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure if the entire puppet skit is genAI as well, but why not just have a voice actor say the lines? The puppets just use random Japanese words mixed with "dan da dan" or "chome chome chome". You couldn't pay someone to do a couple hours of that? Now that I know that a machine spat out a bunch of simulated sounds that mimic effort poorly, the puppets are pretty gross and annoying.

The gameplay is a mix of Let It Die and Deathverse, but honestly, I don't even care to get into the specifics of it. Yeah, it has a somewhat interesting-if-simple roguelite/survival gameplay loop, and yeah, competing with other reviewers on the scoreboard was kinda interesting for a few nights, but I refuse to give any more of my energy to a game that uses generative AI to undermine the good work the other developers spent on this. I don't know if Supertrick leadership or Gungho leadership mandated the AI usage, but they need to get thrown out with the trash. I am beyond disappointed, not just as a game reviewer, but as a Let It Die superfan. 

The main thing is this: the degree to which generative AI is used is not the point. If the asset usage is minor, the cost to hire people to do the work is minor (by company standards). Supertrick and GungHo can afford to pay people to do the work, but they choose not to, because if enough customers are ok with "minor" AI usage, that eventually slides into "the game dev company is laying off workers because people will buy their generative AI game uncritically." I want games made entirely by people, and not partially made by someone putting a prompt into a theft machine. I will categorically refuse all genAI usage until the day I die, even if it comes from a studio I love.

I shouldn't have to comb through a Steam page or search results to figure out if the game I want to spend my real money on is made entirely by humans. I shouldn't have to write a lengthy critique of the use of genAI while discussing a series that, historically, has celebrated art and music. I shouldn't have to deal with any of this shit, but because executives keep shoveling this garbage in front of us, I'm forced to. Do not buy Let It Die: Inferno, or realistically, any game that uses generative AI, and instead spend that money in support of developers who respect the art of game development.