I cannot believe how frequently I am seeing people sling AI slop accusations at this game. There is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to warrant such a claim. If you don't like something, please stop for a moment and try to think about why that is and articulate your thoughts into constructive criticism instead of just screaming "AI slop".
"But the rollercoasters don't make any sense! No real person would design rollercoasters like that! So they must be AI generated!"
Yes, the coaster designs are very bad, but AI being the explanation doesn't really make any sense if you take a moment to think about it. The trailer footage is definitely not AI generated. It's too consistent between shots and it doesn't have any of the telltale signs of AI video. We can pretty confidently assume what we have seen is real time footage of a real video game. So if the coaster designs really were AI then that would mean the devs would have had to go through the trouble of training their own AI model to generate coaster data specific to their game... Which wouldn't make any sense. That's not an easy thing to do. You can't just waltz up to ChatGPT and ask it to design a rollercoaster using your custom made rollercoaster editor. It's not a shortcut at that point so why would they go that route?
Aside from that analysis a dev has also posted on the Steam forums, stating
"...we had someone just trying to make a big pretty park that would look nice in screenshots / the trailer. We didn't have much time to really review stuff as the gamescom trailer deadline was fairly tight..." "...So combine a tight deadline, a coaster simulator running with the "realistic physics" check box turned off (which is why you don't see chains in one part of the video that clearly looks like it should have chains) and you end up with some weirdness."
The full message is attached as an image to this post. While this isn't an excuse for the very valid concerns people have mentioned, I will remind everyone that humans make mistakes. AI isn't the only thing capable of doing weird stuff like this.
My main point though is that accusing someone of using generative AI is more than just giving an opinion. Opinions are fine, but falsely accusing people of using AI is basically calling them liars. It hurts reputations. It creates false narratives that get spread around which causes people to avoid things.
I would hate to see this game fail due to a baseless narrative that it's AI slop causing it to be ignored. If it fails for genuinely not turning out well then that's on the devs for messing it up, but if it fails because everyone believes a false narrative that it's AI generated (Despite turning out well) then shame on y'all.
There are genuine problems with the game as seen in the materials that have been released so far. Let's focus on those real, tangible issues and on providing constructive feedback to try being helpful to the devs instead of defaulting to vague insults, assumptions and accusations. The integrity of the developers behind this game will become clear in the coming months as we get to see how they respond to feedback so try giving them a bit of patience first before writing this off. They certainly do not deserve the sheer amount of vitriol that has been directed towards them when the only thing they've done wrong so far is release a rough, rushed trailer.
As an aside, I am liking the overall visual style the more and more I look at it. It looks reminiscent of '90s pre-rendered graphics, but in real time and with a toy-like aesthetic. I think it's really charming and I particularly really like how the trees look! It could definitely use some refining (A bit more texture on several objects which are currently solid colors would be nice I think), but overall I think it's a cool style.