Round Up: Everything Announced In The Level-5 Vision 2026 II Showcase

It sucks knowing that the games they make now are made with a lot of AI.

Narrows eyes at all the generative AI

It pains me to see you like this, Level-5.

Hopefully the Decapolice release year of 2027 remains this time around, though you can never be certain. The Yo-kai Watch 2 trailer in Japan became extremely popular fast, as the trailer on the Japanese Nintendo youtube channel had over 2 million views in about 24 hours.

Level-5: More announcements than games!

"We expect to make one of our biggest announcements yet."

Oh boy, more delays!

It is a mystery as to when Decapolice comes out.

I still need to pick up Fantasy Life. I can’t keep up with all of these games!

Was excited for Decapolice. Not anymore. Not a fan of gen AI.

Ugh... I was really looking forward to trying Yo-Kai Watch and seeing what the hype was about... now, it'd be best I not touch Level 5 games at all going forward until they abandon this generative AI garbage.

Back to our memories, Professor Layton... your return in this state was not wanted...

@MagicEmperor They literally have nothing and I am pretty sure they haven't even started development yet for this new Yo-kai Watch 2.

So they just rushed an AI teaser trailer to show something and that's it.

I am also very skeptical if it even makes it to the west at all. Since they didn't even bother with the Yo-kai Watch 1 Switch port, which was already fully localized on 3DS. So that was a deliberate decision to not release it outside Japan.

@Jeronan It was because Level-5 Abby (their NA spinoff company) had mass layoffs in mid 2019 and was shut down in 2020 due to most likely low sales in the region. It took about 6 years (2018-2024) before Level-5 released something outside of Japan again that wasn't mobile

@Citano It made sense for Yo-kai Watch 4, since it was a new game.

But with the Yo-kai Watch 1 port it made literally no sense. They just left free money on the table.
They could have easily released it as an eShop only title in the West and it would have cost them literally nothing. Since, again, the game was already fully localized. So they have all the files for it.

Did anyone ever walk through a big game world and think: "It's amazing that someone made all of this"?
Well we don't get to have that feeling anymore in Level-5 games.
And yet, still no Ni No Kuni.

I was hyped for DECAPOLICE but seeing its just cutscenes after years of delays and no presentation of gameplay, beside the very few boring shots… I am giving up! Plus hearing about AI…. One of my favorite developers and seeing this mess, they have lost their way.

I'm still hoping they'll abandon the path of genAI at some point, I love Level5 games and I don't want to see the company to wither like this. I will be playing the Layton game because I've been a fan of the first ones for the longest time, and Decapolice looked fun when they announced it but now I'm hesitating with that one.

Oh, and I'm NEVER getting the "remade" Mysterious Village, the backgrounds are so poorly generated and edited, you can see where they pasted each house into the bigger picture if you take a moment to analyze them. Badly cut out houses, distortions, AI defects... Uugh, no.

Quite frankly, they can announce whatever they want, but if they're going to continue down the AI path like this, then I have zero interest in whatever they put out.

@Citano by then they barely released non phone games at all

I just knew DECAPOLICE would get another delay lol. Typical Level 5. At least the games do eventually come out in a good state, though, even if it does take several delays (and years).

What we need is a Layton collection for Switch 2.

It's all Ai slop. This company is outright dead to me now. Anything they announce just ends up making me feel numb. How did Hino go from leading a company that made some of the best RPG series to just.. putting out this garbage?

@JohnnyMind Yhea they've been struggling so badly I think if we boycott them now there won't be a level 5 anymore... So I'm in a bit of a split here.

Really psyched for the new Layton though! They've been working on it for so long I can't wait to see what they've come up with! It feels new and weird and I love it's finally a proper sequel to the first three and not some daughter, uncle or nephew! 😂

Maybe the major announcement next year is Ni No Kuni? 🥲

I'm interested in both Layton games. I've only played Katrielle and i liked that one, although i've heard that one isn't as liked by the fans compared to the professor

Limiting Layton’s physical release to Japan only (digital-only elsewhere) was a kick in the teeth for me after such a long wait for this game.

@garfreek a boycott wouldn't change much. At worst it would maybe just lead them to once again abandon western releases for some time. They do very well in Japan.

@GJHmf It looks like the Switch 2 version is Game Key Card, so that’s still basically a digital release. Wouldn’t be surprised to see the Switch 1 version is just a code in a box.

Will give this a watch when I get home. I was relieved by how ‘unsloppified’ The New World of Steam was looking based on the Nintendo Direct footage, but it sounds like not all games have escaped that fate…

The Gen AI pile on is just nuts. It's a tool. Some use it well to enhance and speed up menial work, some don't and rush out botched jobs. I do appreciate the rise in manufacturing costs have been hugely negative all round though!

The downfall of a studio...

i'm just happy yo-kai watch is coming back AI or not!!!!

@Fizza I've rewatched the remake trailer and detected no Gen-AI nonsense. Can you be more specific?

Sure, some background textures aren't crisp like the character models but that's not a sign of AI-generated backgrounds (and this wouldn't be the first or last remake not to redo every single texture)

Holy Horror Mansion feels like it was entirely animated with AI.

@Jeronan was pretty baffling their decision with the Switch game. And then they had the audacity to get pissy that the community took it upon themselves to make a fan translation.

Ni no kuni 3 for the big announcement?

Idk how to feel about this. I like the design of holy horror mansion but Idk. It looks really choppy in parts and Im not sure if thats because gen AI was used for the trailer and if so where. Seeing all this talk about AI worries me. I haven't followed level 5 much so this all leaves me confused. Do we know for certain in which of these projects gen AI was used? I want a new layton but I will not support gen AI when we have sooo many talents out there.

Sooo Holy horror mansion is still chockfull AI? I guess all the upcoming games from Level 5 are littered with AI? Even the new Layton, although the trailer looked awesome. I don't need a remake of the first one though, the only new thing in there seems to be the 3D models.

Level 5 might be one of the first "big" game companies who fully embraces AI. I mean, I haven't seen it that blatently before, only in shovelware e-shop games. Level 5 might be losing a lot of fans this way, but they don't seem to care. My advice: Just keep blindly going in the wrong direction. You learn eventually, when the bad sales kick in!

Level-5 = AI = No buy.

Shame Nintendo didn't scoop them up way back when.

Wow, western audience surely has the biggest hateboner for AI, no wonder that Level 5 isn't in a hurry to localize it's games.

So sad to see a company - who were putting out quality for years before - now resulting to using AI to generate games instead of actually trying. They struggled in the early 10s (GO era had great gameplay contrasted with horrible stories), but this is a further step down. It feels like they feel very burned by Victory Road (10 year development, and still released rushed and filled with AI), but these constant downgrades feel even cheaper than that. Layton just being AI is going to cause issues, it's probably their most well-known IP (especially due to the time and effort previously put in) so release an AI-slopped title is going to ruin whatever goodwill they have left (and there's not a lot now).

@somnambulance he really isn't right, in fact this is the same argument Hino himself is making. The actual reaction to the news on both sides is quite negative, it's not actually being supported, and "30k likes on the video" means nothing when it has way more dislikes. The answer is going to be seen in reviews and sales, not by NL's worst commentor making yet another bad opinion.

@somnambulance - I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the stigma against AI use in videogames is based on the idea that the AI is replacing human effort; in other words, not only do you end up with something cheap looking and mass-produced, but you’re also presumably costing people their livelihoods. With that in mind, telling everyone that “everyone is doing it, so it’s fine” doesn’t really work as a defence, or justification.
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I might still get the new Layton game, but the remake just does not look good, unfortunately, and if it’s true that it was done using AI, well, I can’t say I’m surprised. I understand the temptation, but it really cannot be utilized as a crutch, or a replacement for human effort, especially with a series like Layton, which relies on having a cosy, hand-crafted atmosphere.

@FullMetalWesker Of course there are bad actors who just churn out junk. Also, of course AI would replace the relatively simpler tasks - first round proofreading is a very useful AI capability that's been invaluable in my work. It calls out wordings which would pass a grammar and spell check but would fail a human read. With the volume of words or when you're editing the same publication for the nth time, you're going to miss details and typos. It's only human.

Looking at AI as a crutch isn't the right or useful way to look at it. It's an aid. A tool. The stigma is largely based on actions by bad actors who use AI with very little thought or effort and it shows. A sustainable AI solution takes much much longer than a couple of minutes to cobble together some prompts. Going further, creating a reliable, competent, well-rounded and grounded AI agent takes many many many hours of iteration and testing.

I fear and feel gamers are just jumping on the AI-hate bandwagon and blindly assuming everything produced by Level 5 is done by AI.

@somnambulance Great points you've shared to steer the comments here

I'm very excited for the NEW Layton game, and the remake is nice, but as someone else said, what I REALLY need is a collection of games 1-6 on Switch 2!!!!!!!!!!!!! Heck, sell it to me in a collection of 1-3 and another of 4-6, I'd be fine with that too!

@Dalamar You should check on social medias how some japanese gamers are reacting, western audience is shy in comparison.

@jsty3105 - That’s….not the type of AI I was referring to. I wasn’t referring to AI as a proofreader, I was talking about it being used in artistic works as a replacement for artists and programmers and the like.
“Looking at AI as a crutch isn’t the right way to look at it”
I…did say that, so not sure what that’s about? Also, while I respect your argument a bit more than “everyone’s doing it, therefore it’s good”, the thing about it is that from what I’ve seen, the fear is that this “bad faith” approach will become the norm as a result of typical human greed and shortsightedness. And I honestly can’t blame them too much, considering lazyness and/or convenience are popular human weaknesses. So, even if AI could be used well, will it, and how often?

Sweet! I can get Professor Layton on Switch one to get a real physical version.

@somnambulance yeah, good luck convincing that to people who see this issue as a moral, black and white issue. I'm of the opinion that there's still potential positives from using it including, like you said, making menial tasks less so

Anyone mad at Level-5 using AI to aid in development is being silly.

@JohnnyMind Thanks! You made my day! Thank you very much!!!

@FullMetalWesker you've given an exceptionally narrow use of AI that doesn't reflect the reality of how businesses use AI. Level 5 has already documented how they use to generate concept visuals for their designers and programmers to work with and used Chatgpt to mass generate concepts for characters and side quests "to be used by the development team as a reference to create the quest." Edit: It's clearly not replacing artists and programmers etc

That speeds up game development time. I mean, sure, the chatgpt concepts could certainly done by a human but not efficiently at scale when you're trying to create hundreds of side quests. Also of course, there's an argument to be made that it's not about efficiency, it's about getting it done by a human.

That means game development cycles remain generally long and, crucially, expensive unless you specifically go for simple concepts like Mecca Chamelon. There's a lot more to this use of AI thing than just art generation. Teams across the company would use it to summarise meeting notes (do you like to take minutes during meetings? I certainly don't), quickly generate internal plans, brainstorm much more quickly, filter out fluff and more. Some use cases are simple, some are multi-faceted and complex.

At the end of the day, there are good use cases and bad use cases for AI. Companies use it to speed up work because it no longer makes sense to do some things manually.

Demonising it because some bad actors create terrible content isn't helpful.

Crafting items with different looks?! Someone tell Monster Hunter to add this already!

I am not sure why there is so much hate for Holy Horrow Mansion and its “gen AI” look.

Fortnite, Disney Dream Valley and Palworld aren’t that far off…

Nice to see Curious Village being made available on Switch, but I have to say those 3D models are a downgrade from the original regardless of whether AI is used. I've yet to see any signs of AI use in New World of Steam, so hopefully that is indeed the case and I'm also hoping it will have an upgrade path so I can get the proper physical release on Switch 1 and then upgrade it to get mouse controls.

New Layton stands out for me. I may revisit good old Curious Village on S2.

I need reviews for all the other stuff.

You all said it all. I don't even need to say this, but I will. AI sucks. I was on board with that adult game the CEO was talking about before his AI pivot. Imagine that. I would be on board with most anything, but I'm not on board with AI. If you all wanted to end an industry, you're doing a bang-up job at it.

@JohnnyMind I think it's all the bad actors in the industry (and to a smaller extent, the proliferation of low quality video games that rely heavily/totally on AI generated visuals). Gamers immediately think AI is used to replace artists and programmers. Those who've worked in either field (and I straddle both worlds since I know some coding and I have a background in corporate graphic design) know that it's actually a lot more work than one might think to generate believable, good quality creative original visuals solely by using AI. There's long long process of iterative prompting to get to reasonable final result.

Creating stuff with AI is easy. Creating useful interesting stuff for a corporation to sell is a bit harder since, by design, AI creations refer to previous examples so it's easier to iterate but harder to create something new. Perhaps it's the relative success of the AI video generation tools that's also contributed to the distaste and revulsion some have. I've tried some, while they're fun in isolation to tinker with, they're not a replacement for creative video editors with proficiency in filming, storyboarding, and video production.

This is disappointing; looks like I'll have to import the Switch 1 version of Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. Digital only in the West, and unsurprisingly the Switch 2 version in Japan is digital and digital.

As for the other announcements that caught my eye:

• We already know the Yo-Kai Watch 2 remake exists from the Direct, though I hope they didn't announce it TOO soon.
• I'm glad Professor Layton and the Curious Village is getting another lease on life, but I think I'll stick with my DS copy. While I don't mind the 3D look in the series that started with Miracle Mask, I prefer the older pixel style.
• Holy Horror Mansion looks like it's shaping up well and could help scratch my Yo-Kai Watch itch. Need to learn more first.
• While I'm glad DECAPOLICE isn't dead and am still curious, I'd like to see some extended gameplay before long.

That's if most of these aren't delayed ad nauseam even more. I'd rather games be delayed than rushed out, but Level-5 clearly announces some of their titles TOO early IMO. We're spoiled by Nintendo in comparison.

I've said my piece elsewhere about the AI discussion. At the end of the day, it's one tool out of many in our toolsets and can be used well and abused. I do have my problems with it, but it also isn't a Boogeyman like some make it out to be.

It seems you're out of the loop here
So Level 5 are actually no longer a game studio and are just an AI slop machine, they've abandoned real games and just gone for being an AI "company"
It's fair that not everyone's in the loop about it so thought I'd give a heads up

Lots of games to look forward to!

By the way, is it confirmed that they're using generative AI? And for what purpose? It's getting very hard to notice, to be honest...
I mean, I see these great looking games and soooo many other ones from other companies, and I don't see much difference.

@the_beaver Level 5 has documented how they use it to generate concepts for their staff to create visuals and content more quickly. They don't actually make games with AI in the way gamers might think.

Level 5 also released a statement. https://x.com/AkihiroHino/status/2098650784934338645

I'll share the relevant part here: "at our company, all elements related to the appeal and individuality of our released titles, including scenarios, character designs, and foundational settings, are created by people.

The areas where we are looking to improve efficiency through AI mainly involve digitizing creative work that has already been made by people. One example would be accurately converting original artwork into polygonal models.

Please be assured that our released games do not contain casually generated AI output."

And "...we used AI in many areas [of the presentation] this time because we wanted to create a presentation that was easy to understand and visually impressive.

We will take this experience as a lesson and apply it going forward, so we hope you look forward to Level-5’s next presentation."

The soccer ball was distorting in real time cuz it was ai

Too many ppl here are immediately assuming AI.

I suspect it's related to sensationalist gaming headlines last year that wrongly claimed Level 5 was using AI to create 80 to 90 percent of a game.

Wouldn't be the first or last time gaming media jumped on sensationalist headlines without fact checking or offering context.

They will go ahead and announce the use of the beloved DLSS 5 filters.