Despite AI-generated textures, audio, and music, Steam users shower hotly anticipated survival game in 11,000 95% positive reviews in just a few days

My Winter Car is the even-more-hostile sequel to My Summer Car, a brutally detailed and unforgiving car sim which has quietly become one of the highest-rated survival games on Steam since its Early Access launch in October 2016. My Winter Car just began its own Early Access run on December 29 for $15, and it's already amassed an enviable pile of, currently, 11,051 user reviews tallying 95% "Overwhelmingly" positive on Steam. Rather interestingly, it's done this in spite of heavier and very open use of AI-generated content.

With My Winter Car, "very small development team" Amistech Games has more loudly embraced the survival game label, warning players that its latest Seasonal Car Ownership installment is a fierce survival adventure "not recommended for any player not familiar with the original installment." It has also embraced gen AI more than ever.

My Summer Car has the following AI content disclosure on Steam: "There are some AI generated paintings found inside the main house." That's it.

My Winter Car evidently uses gen AI to a greater degree. Its AI disclosure reads: "Some base textures have been AI generated during the development. Some of the imagery and speech audio in the in-game TV programs are AI generated. Some in-game radio music is AI generated."

It's unclear if these textures were only used "during the development" or if they made it into the shipped build of the game, perhaps with a retouching, but it's plain to see that My Winter Car uses gen AI more than its predecessor, and across multiple disciplines.

We've already seen from the likes of Arc Raiders, which uses weak AI-generated voices for characters and callouts, that games can find success and be fun to play despite gen-AI content. In the case of My Winter Car, beyond its AI-generated content likewise appearing supplemental to the experience – the game isn't about audio and music, it's about "severe car fever" and fighting the cold with the heat of burning rubber – it also seems to be getting by on the devotion of a niche audience of sickos who won't be put off by AI in principle if it means they can wreak havoc in a deathtrap in a Finnish winter countryside.

I put a spotlight on this not to suggest it's irrefutable evidence that people don't care about AI content – many do, and player backlash regularly comes thick and fast at the first whiff of slop – but because My Winter Car is simultaneously a fascinating indie success story going into 2026, another case of a well-received game openly making use of AI-generated assets, and an interesting example how AI is being used in games.

The Last of Us star Troy Baker says "we don't need to demonize" gen AI because it's just going to drive people to "authentic" experiences "as opposed to the gruel that gets distilled to me through a black mirror."