Code Mystics Accused of Using AI Images In Real Bout Fatal Fury 2

In the recent Steam port of Real Bout Fatal Fury 2: The Newcomers from Code Mystics, a very unexpected but very contentious issue popped up when people took a closer look at the game's achievements.

More specifically, the art used for those achievements, like "Spread Your Wings," which features a particularly messed up looking arcade cabinet. If you have any experience with AI generated images, you might know that it struggles with exact details.

To oversimplify it, most image generation works by taking in an existing image or even random noise, and after being given a prompt, approximating what the image should look like based on its training data. This often leads to common artifacts like melty lines, inconsistencies, and random hallucinations of things that don't make much sense. All of which is present in the art used for Real Bout Fatal Fury 2.

Code Mystics immediately reacted to the news during the weekend, and tried to reassure people that no GenAI was involved in the creation of the assets. More than that, they specified that Code Mystics and the artist who worked on the art for these achievements are strongly against the use of GenAI in their work.

Going a step further, they even shared the PSD file of the achievement art, but it did not lead to the resolution they perhaps expected.

Upon inspecting the PSD file, the many AI artifacts only become more apparent.

For starters, look at the layout. When was the last time you saw an arcade cabinet with buttons on the left and sticks on the right? Not to mention, for some reason, the Player 1 side has two large red buttons that are clearly protruding from the cabinet, while Player 2 gets only one blue button that has sunk into the cabinet. Even their sticks are oddly chubby and short, with the one further from the viewer also being longer than the other.

The panel above that layout is also not making much sense. If this was a Neo Geo cab, above the player controls you'd have two start buttons for both players, and a shared select button. What is seen in this image almost seems like it was trying to reference Street Fighter 2 cabs, which had large yellow labels with "how to play" information, rather than an assortment of buttons. Nevertheless, even taking this as is, you will notice strange inconsistencies. On the left, there are two large yellow buttons with some sort of notes to the left and right of them, presumably button descriptions. On the right side, the top button has a green highlight, and the bottom button is much smaller, with notes only appearing on the left side.

Now lets move to the bottom of the cabinet. You'll see there what looks like a large red button, and then two slits below it, presumably coin slots, even though one of them is straight while the other is shaped like a "greater than" sign. On a real cabinet, there would be two of these red buttons (they will refund/reject coins when you press them, and usually display what type of coins the cab takes), with coin slots right next to them. Below those coin slots, there are always chutes for coins that got rejected or refunded.

Another abnormality comes with the shading of the screen. Glass shading itself is odd, but could still be reasoned as an artistic choice. It's harder to say the same for the top panel above the screen. The shading there seems to imply the glow coming off the screen, but it's only seen on the left side of the cab, while completely missing on the right. The nondescript marquee of the cabinet contains the last major oddity. In the top left corner, there is a weird segment that seems to show some hallucinations, like the repeating red color that bleeds into dark blue, and a random black dot, alongside the segment above it, which rides into the square black frame.

And of course, this is all coupled with the sort of melty lines with chaotic line weight that you wouldn't see from the sort of intentional work done by a human.

As you might expect, when you put all this together, many people rejected Code Mystics's explanation and insisted that this can't be dismissed as simply freehand drawing or a stylistic choice, as these artifact would not appear if this was the case.

The next day, Code Mystics offered a more detailed explanation on the Steam forums:

"We really are listening to the criticisms. We offered what answers we could on a Sunday night, DM'ing with the artist.

Now it's Monday, and everyone's back in the office. We're having detailed discussions, not to accuse but to understand. Our artist does insist that genAI was not used, and offered explanations for the various issues raised, but we expect those offered details would likely be seen as "doubling down" and so ultimately immaterial in the current public discourse.

What we are doing now is discussing steps to address the criticisms and to help ensure we don't end up in this situation in the future."

If they insist that no AI was used, this seems to be the best course of action. Condemning an employee who you trust and have worked with for over 15 years is not easy, and most people would much rather trust the words and reasoning of people they know, rather than internet strangers. Code Mystics have also done some amazing work in the past, so there's enough trust to say that they do mean what they say, and approach this issue in good faith.

For now, it's not clear what steps the company will take, though it doesn't seem unlikely that the artwork will be replaced with existing SNK art. This might be the safest approach going forward, since Code Mystics are taking a hard stance that AI wasn't used. Sadly, even if they are likely genuine with their words and intentions, the image raises too many questions that can't be quelled with "trust us."

However, the situation could still change at any moment, as many artists have been chiming in with their own skepticism surrounding the artwork, so perhaps Code Mystics could find them to be more convincing.