Saber Interactive adds AI disclosure to Rideshare Stimulator on Steam

Amid the ongoing fallout between Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Karch and former writer Stella Sacco, following his controversial remark that he would have “been happy to replace” her with AI, the studio has now quietly added the long-awaited AI disclosure to the Steam page for Rideshare Stimulator. The disclaimer had been noticeably absent since the game was first listed for wishlisting on 30th July.

Karch had previously stated the disclosure would arrive “once [the game was] finalised,” but the store page has since been updated to include the full AI transparency notice.

“Once it’s finalised we will update the Steam page,” Karch told IGN just before the weekend, notably prior to Sacco acknowledging his private apology. “In Rideshare, we added an unrelated experimental mode to the game to play around with these concepts. It’s not the core experience.

“And even in this case it required us adding two writers and multiple coders to work with AI tools to try and get a reasonable result. Maybe we are bad at business, but the net cost of incorporating these features was significantly higher than leaving them out.”

The actual disclosure, however, goes deeper than Karch’s remarks suggested. It clarifies that the main campaign’s story, characters, and dialogue are entirely human-written, with AI tools applied only to voice generation and select localisation tasks.

The AI usage Karch referenced resides in a separate, optional Free Ride mode. That mode features AI-generated passenger missions and localised dialogue, though the disclosure notes it “can be skipped by players who prefer to experience only human-written narrative content.”

The store page also confirms that the game’s radio stations blend human-made tracks with AI-generated music, and that any AI-produced stations are “clearly labelled as such” within the game itself.

Karch used the moment to mount a broader defence of Saber’s AI adoption, admitting his “PR team is always terrified by even broaching the subject,” but insisting he’d welcome “a reasonable conversation about how AI can and should help shape gamer experiences.”

He also dismissed the wider backlash as a “publicity stunt,” pointing out that Saber’s writing staff has expanded since Sacco departed three years ago. He added, somewhat pointedly, “I guess I have Stella to thank for it” if the controversy drives attention to Rideshare Stimulator.

Karch has since apologised to Sacco, and she has accepted his apology.

“Apologies are simply in too short a supply these days to spurn one when it’s offered,” she wrote, adding: “God willing, this is the last statement I’ll need to make about this.”