Saber Interactive denies replacing writer with ChatGPT on Rideshare Stimulator, but confirms AI dialog for infinite passengers

Former lead writer Stella Sacco publicly accused Saber Interactive of replacing her with ChatGPT midway through development of Rideshare Stimulator, a new driving game built by developer Unigine. Saber flatly denies the claim, but does confirm that an experimental free-ride mode will use AI-generated dialog because the passenger count in that mode is effectively infinite.

Sacco, who worked as lead writer at Saber from July 2023 to July 2024, posted on Bluesky that she was removed from the project and that all passenger voices were also AI-generated. She backed the claim with a December 2023 Facebook post in which she wrote that she had been replaced on one of her games by ChatGPT. She says the call came from one or two executives who believed that using AI would be "great marketing" because "gamers love new tech" — and that her direct manager pushed back repeatedly, arguing she was already doing the job well. Sacco also clarified she has no issue with Unigine itself, only with the Saber executives who made the decision. After PC Gamer reached out, Saber issued a statement saying its writing staff has actually tripled since 2023, that Rideshare's story was written entirely by humans, and that no writers have been replaced by AI on any of its projects. The studio added that its 3,000-plus employees have no reason to fear AI replacement, and pointed to a long history of using AI tools to improve NPC behavior dating back to the studio's founding in 2001. Sacco, in response, stood by her account: "They can say what they want — I was there," she told PC Gamer, adding that if Saber changed direction in the years since she left, that's fine, but the original plan was to use ChatGPT for the remaining text and planned live updates.

The dispute lands at a particularly raw moment for the games industry, where AI use in creative roles has become one of the most contentious labor issues around. Saber is a large multi-studio publisher behind games like Space Marine 2 and the World War Z co-op shooter, so the allegation carries weight beyond a single project. The lack of any AI disclosure on the Rideshare Stimulator Steam page is what drew the sharpest criticism from players — not the use of AI itself, but the apparent absence of transparency about it.

The accusation triggered immediate backlash on both YouTube and Steam. With Saber and Sacco giving directly contradictory accounts, the dispute is unlikely to be resolved cleanly — but the pressure on studios to disclose AI involvement in shipped content is clearly not going away.