Square Enix is tired of people comparing its upcoming four versus four shooter Foamstars to Splatoon, insisting they’re “completely different games.”
Foamstars producer Kosuke Okatani was asked by VGC if he was tired of comparisons between the two games, to which he replied: “First of all, yes. There have been many comparisons on the internet, but also, we saw on social media that the people who actually played it saw that it’s a completely different game, and I hope you also agree.”
Foamstars looks like Splatoon on the surface as it sees two teams battle while covering the map in their respective colours. Splatoon makes this the main focus, as whoever has the most territory covered wins the game, while Foamstars’ map covering only allows for improved traversal.
“I feel like the mechanic of having the things you shoot stay on the field is very unique,” Okatani said. He said it was “a great honour” if this became a genre of its own, akin to Soulslike or Metroidvania. Splatter, perhaps.
Fans can find out for themselves when Foamstars launches on February 6 exclusive to PlayStation 4 and 5. It will also be available at no extra cost to PlayStation Plus owners of any tier. While IGN had good things to say in our Foamstars preview, Square Enix has since received backlash for using AI generated art to build the game.
Square Enix used controversial AI tool Midjourney, which turns text prompts into visual art, to create in-game album covers for music tracks. “We experimented with Midjourney using simple prompts to produce abstract images,” Square Enix said. “We loved what was created and used them as the final album covers players will see in the game. Everything else was created entirely by our development team.”
Midjourney is one of several AI companies mentioned in an ongoing lawsuit that lists thousands of artists who have allegedly had their artwork scraped to train AI tools.
The inclusion of AI in Foamstars is perhaps unsurprising given Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu said in January 2024 that the company will be “aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
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