Perhaps the only thing more exciting than the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement this year was that of Mario Kart World. The next instalment of the beloved racing franchise will launch with the new console on 5 June. But somewhat surprisingly for a game with such already iconic visuals, the graphics have come under scrutiny, with some gamers accusing Nintendo of using AI.
Some gamers took to social media to claim that footage from a recent Nintendo Treehouse livestream showing Mario Kart World gameplay showed clear signs of AI-generated content. And seeing as Nintendo has proclaimed it won't use AI for game development, we didn't see this one coming.
An unusually-shaped car in Mario Kart? Never... (Image credit: Nintendo)
Of particular note to gamers were billboards adorning the side of a track, which featured fairly strange or rudimentary illustrations. Then there was a quirky font on another billboard, whose imperfect edges suggested, some said, AI upscaling.
Nintendo has since denied the claims, telling Eurogamer, "AI-generated images were not used in the development of Mario Kart World."
But the surprising thing here perhaps isn't the fact that Nintendo didn't use AI, but that it saw the need to defend itself in the first place. For a start, there's the basis for some of the claims. One of the suspected AI billboards features a car with an unusual design. A car with an unusual design? In Mario Kart? Never. As for the font, a quirky and cartoonish font? In Mario Kart? Never.
A font accused of being AI-generated (Image credit: Nintendo)
Indeed, while we've seen plenty of claims of egregious AI use in video games from Fallout to Call of Duty, the Mario Kart accusations show that we've reached a point where, as AI art gets harder to spot, anything can be accused of being made with it. Which begs the question, where will it end?
All of which is not to say that pointing out lazy or unwarranted AI use is a bad thing. Nintendo's swift response proves that brands don't want to be wrongly associated with AI – as we know, it's one of the biggest risks to a brand's reputation right now. But if AI's ubiquity has reached a point that background assets of even the most famously cartoonish game are ripe for accusations, then these are strange times for digital art indeed.
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Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles. He has interviewed leaders and designers at brands including Apple, Microsoft and Adobe. Daniel's debut book of short stories and poems was published in 2018, and his comedy newsletter is a Substack Bestseller.
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