This is one of those times where a company was blamed for AI usage.
Saber's Rideshare "Stimulator" reveal was doing well. CEO Matt Karch had confirmed the trailer contained a buried dig at Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford, which is the kind of publisher needling that generates a pleasant afternoon of coverage and nothing worse.
Then Stella Sacco saw it.
"I didn't even see this had been announced," she revealed on Bluesky on 11 August. "I was lead writer on this one! And Saber replaced me with ChatGPT midway through development. All the passenger voices were AI too. Either they changed direction at some point or they're not disclosing it on Steam." Her LinkedIn has her at Saber from July 2023 to July 2024 as a writer, credited on Stuntman: Hollywood among other things in the portfolio.
The two accounts
Saber's response was flat and quick. "Neither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game. In fact, Saber's staff of writers has tripled since 2023. Rideshare's story was written entirely by real people."
"The game will also feature an experimental, free-ride mode that by necessity incorporates AI as the number of passengers in the game is infinite. We are firm believers in using AI tools to improve or enhance gameplay experiences and improve NPC behavior as we have done since Saber was founded in 2001." None of its 3,000-plus staff, the studio added, need worry about being replaced.
Sacco hasn't shifted. "They can say what they want, I was there, I even posted on Facebook about it at the time, and I have mentioned it on Bluesky several times without using the game's title." She puts the decision on Saber rather than developer Unigine, and describes a specific internal argument: her boss pushing back repeatedly against the C-level executive driving the AI plan, arguing "we already have Stella and she's funny and she's good at this, she's done live games before so live ops are no problem." The suit's answer, per Sacco, was that "gamers love new tech" and AI would make for great marketing.
She stated that players will hate AI usage and it will be worse for the game in the long run. Well she was right in a way considering what happens to AI assisted titles.
The officials stated that the reason she was let go was because of performance issues. Which is generally the case.
The disclosure gap
There is another issue about this whole thing.Steam Disclosures.
Valve developers must flag generative AI when it produces content players actually see. Saber has now confirmed AI will voice passengers in free-ride mode. The Steam page carries no disclosure. That gap opened because of Saber's own statement, not Sacco's allegation.
There was a significant backlash on Reddit, which probably explains why the denial arrived so fast and so meticulously worded.
What the denial actually covers
Read the two statements side by side and they mostly talk past each other.
Saber obviously replacing writers and said real people wrote the story. Sacco alleges she was pulled off the project and ChatGPT handled the remaining text. A studio could do exactly that, change course a year later, hire more writers, and still ship a human-written story with the denial intact. Sacco raised that possibility herself in her first post, allowing Saber may have "changed direction at some point."
The writing staff has tripled since 2023, by Saber's own count, this is a unique moment for Saber to explain the AI usage.
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