Vapor World: Over The Mind

A memoryless boy, a shattered dream, and a rocky launch day

Vapor World: Over The Mind casts you as a boy who has lost his memories, drawn into descending through a twisted, shattered dream in search of what he's forgotten, framed around a souls-like platformer built on precise deflection combat rather than dodging or outright blocking. Released into Early Access on 18 August 2026 by ALIVE Inc. at NZ$21.99, it arrives after years of visible public development, a Kickstarter campaign launched back in November 2023, demo builds stretching from January 2023 through March 2026, and convention appearances at both TGS 2025 and G-Star 2024, with over 100,000 wishlists heading into launch. None of that lengthy build-up prevented its opening day from being dominated by a controversy the developer brought entirely upon itself.

The AI cutscene controversy that defined launch day

Shortly before release, ALIVE Inc. used generative AI video for two key sequences: the game's opening cutscene and a later weapon-acquisition scene. The backlash was immediate and specific. One of the review sample's most-upvoted negative reviews states plainly that "the generative AI they used couldn't even keep the main character's model consistent," while another describes cutscenes so obviously AI-generated that they were "not even subtle," citing AI voices alongside the AI video itself. A third reviewer, among the game's most anticipated titles of the year for them personally, reports refunding after just six minutes, specifically criticising two-minute AI-generated sequences rendered at 240p and a story that "feels like the ai generated cutscenes were just put together randomly." Several reviewers independently note that the game's own store page did carry an AI-disclosure notice, but argue the scale and prominence of the AI content, appearing in the very first cutscene before any gameplay, still amounted to a significant breach of trust for a project many had followed and wishlisted for years specifically because of its hand-crafted, painterly art direction.

A same-day hotfix and a personal apology

To ALIVE Inc.'s credit, the response was fast. The same day as launch, the studio shipped "Patch 0.5.4: AI Removal Hotfix," stripping out every AI-generated cutscene and voice line and restoring the team's original, hand-made animation. Director Young Kim followed with a personal post titled "About AI in Vapor World," describing the decision to use AI content as "entirely my own fault" and committing to never using AI-generated cutscenes again. A further patch the next day, "Patch 0.5.4f10," paired continued commentary addressing lingering community questions about AI use with unrelated fixes to movement responsiveness and save-data handling. That response is reflected in a handful of reviews written after the hotfix landed, including one that argues "they took out the AI cutscenes already, so all the negative reviews are already at this point moot," though that view was very much a minority position within the sample at the time of writing, and several of the earliest, most-upvoted negative reviews remain unedited despite the fix.

What reviewers who looked past the controversy actually found

Set aside the AI issue, and a meaningful number of reviewers describe a combat system with real promise. One reviewer calls the gameplay "pretty insane" despite ultimately declining to recommend the game over the AI issue on principle, while another draws a specific, favourable comparison to Lies of P and Salt and Sanctuary for both its art style and combat feel. The sample's most detailed positive review praises "crazy" art direction, an interesting story from its opening hours, and specifically calls out soulslike systems like beacon-based resting points, interesting talent trees, and equipment enhancements and consumables as well-implemented, closing with a note that new players should switch the game's default language away from Korean on first boot. That same throughline, souls-like structure wrapped in painterly, dreamlike visuals, is echoed by a reviewer who says they "extremely LOVE Vaporworld" specifically for its painterly style, characters and world, arguing real artists finishing the job properly could still redeem the project, and by others who single out the deflection-based parry system itself as the game's most distinct mechanical idea.

Technical rough edges beyond the AI issue

Independent of the AI controversy, a separate cluster of reviewers report more conventional Early Access growing pains. Complaints include clunky controls, wooden animations, blurry graphics, and a settings menu that reviewers say currently offers only keybinding options with no graphics or sound settings, alongside a lack of ultrawide monitor support despite it being listed as supported in the game's own FAQ. One particularly detailed negative review describes the game as "absolutely unplayable" specifically because their character turns around unexpectedly while attempting to parry a sweep attack, a precise mechanical complaint about the deflection system that sits separately from, though compounds, the broader AI backlash. A handful of reviewers also report bugs around an invisible settings menu, missing subtitle text, and items failing to appear correctly in the inventory, issues the developer's own patch notes suggest are actively being triaged alongside the AI-related fixes.

A roadmap promising recovery, with achievement data unavailable to check it

An Early Access roadmap posted shortly after launch commits ALIVE Inc. to a six-week update cadence going forward, alongside confirmation of the game's souls-like platformer framing and its more than 100,000 pre-launch wishlists, a real base of prior goodwill the studio will need that update pace to help repair. Steam's global achievement-statistics endpoint returned no accessible data for this game at the time of writing, meaning there's no broader player-behaviour data available to independently check how many buyers are actually progressing deep enough into the game to judge its combat and story on their own merits, versus how many are bouncing off the opening minutes over the AI cutscenes alone, a gap worth keeping in mind given how much of the current review sample explicitly says it never got past the introduction.

Final verdict

Vapor World: Over The Mind arrives with a genuinely interesting hook, souls-like deflection combat wrapped in painterly, dreamlike art direction, that reviewers who played past its opening minutes describe with real enthusiasm, but its Early Access launch was badly undercut by a self-inflicted controversy over generative AI cutscenes that the developer, to its credit, moved to fix within a single day alongside a direct personal apology. Separate from that controversy, a real cluster of reports about clunky controls, thin settings options and specific combat bugs suggests this remains an Early Access build still finding its footing on more than one front. At NZ$21.99, this is a cautious recommendation at best right now, better suited to buyers willing to watch how the promised six-week update cadence plays out than to those looking for a settled, polished experience on day one.