Free horror game finds a rare good use for AI generation, takes 20 minutes to beat but will give you a lifetime of existential dread and AOL nostalgia

Last Seen Online
(Image credit: Sochin Studio)

, a new free horror game I spotted from its great , has m🅘anaged to pull off two unlikely victories: it actually makes good use of AI-generat♈ed content and it's existentially scary on a level I've seldom experienced.

Usually, "AI-generated content disclosure" is the most efficient way to make me lose interest in a game, but two key distinctions persuaded me to give Last Seen Online a shot. For one, it's an indie horror game prominently featuring AOL inst♒ant messenger, an irresistible appeal to my exact age and preferences. Secondly, the way it utilizes AI software to produce content seems relatively innocent an𒐪d genuinely clever. 

"Photoshop's generative AI is used to create the fake photographs throughout the game," the Steam page explains. "Theꦦse fake photographs are created by the developer taking photos of themselves or of empty scenes and then changi🦋ng the gender, age, and clothing, or inserting props or humans."

So, instead of using AI to write lame dialogue or auto-generated quests displacing human jobs, it just edits pictures of the developer to obscure and distort identities - reasonable! I still have questions about what other content that root AI may have scraped, but this seems like a pretty clean use of AI as a tool. Having take♒n 20 minutes to play through the game myself, I have to say the photographs are 🐼convincing enough that you'd never know they're AI-created unless you're looking very carefully, and that uncanniness kind of suits the atmosphere. 

I can also wholeheartedly guarantee you that you will not be worried about AI-generated content. I won't get into spoilers, but t💞he story starts with the player character buying an old laptop at a garage sale and opening it to find evidence of🐭 the incredibly sad, disturbing backstory of its original owner. The ending in particular left me on the edge of a panic attack. 

Seriously, the story is one big meditation on the tragedy of youth with heady themes including abandonment, suicide, and transhumanism. In short, it's dark as all hell, and you'd be wise to exercise caution going in, particularly if your mental state is at allꦡ fragile. All that said, it packs a hell of a punch in a really short amount of time, and along with its clever, seemingly harmless use of AI, it deserves your time so long as you have the mental and emotional bandwidth for it.

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After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar's ꦑwest coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.