100% agreed. I paid to subscribe to his Patreon just to tell him to stop on that post.
I actually read it, and for that alone you’re my hero of the day. I had exactly the same thoughts, but I couldn’t voice them anymore because he now charges money just to be able to comment on the progress reports. Most likely because there was too much backlash in the past when commenting was still free. And of course, the next logical step is to put it behind a paywall so you have to be a paying patron. That’s something I personally wasn’t willing to do—but my thoughts were identical to what you wrote under that post.
I also found it kind of wild how dismissive, short, and snippy his response was as a developer. No real engagement with the criticism at all—just a throwaway line like “AI is the future,” and therefore he has to use it now, otherwise the opportunity might be gone. That’s such nonsense. Why not at least wait until AI is developed enough that it can be integrated into an existing system in a way that actually fits the look and feel of the game?
Because, as you correctly pointed out, AI in its current form doesn’t fit at all with the aesthetic Amnesia was going for up until now. It really does feel like one thing being slapped on top of another. It clashes hard and completely breaks immersion. That’s exactly why the latest animated scenes felt downright catastrophic to me.
I see it the same way you do: there are some AVNs that go all-in on AI and manage to find an aesthetic where it works cohesively. But in those cases, the whole project is built around it from the start. Amnesia, on the other hand, had a strong visual identity without AI—and that’s now been thrown overboard, seemingly because AI is the path of least resistance and probably makes the developer’s life easier.
I mean, really think about it: the game gets remastered after five years, progress is still painfully slow, and suddenly it’s nothing but AI slop. The animations look awful, and content-wise, not much has happened so far anyway. The one real trademark the game had for me—its beautiful, handcrafted animation aesthetic—is now gone. The game has stripped itself of the very thing that made it special.
What really drives me crazy is the developer’s attitude—whether it’s a he or a she, I don’t even know. The sheer ignorance in how criticism like yours is handled is infuriating. Sure, in the end it should be irrelevant to me since I’m not paying a cent. But still, the way they respond to posts like yours feels like pure disregard.
And honestly, it’s just sad that there are still so many bootlickers around who rush in to defend it all and try to sugarcoat the situation.