The Oliver Brothers recently announced a crowdfunding campaign for the "Ecco the Dolphin Select Collection," aiming to bring three titles developed in 1993 to the Sega Mega Drive. However, inconsistencies in character designs within the project's promotional materials have led Time Extension's author to question the team's quality control when using AI tools for artwork.
The collection includes "Adventures of Ecco the Dolphin," "Ecco: The Tides of Time," and "Ecco Jr." This marks the Oliver Brothers' return to the Ecco series after many years, following an agreement with IP holder Codemasters. The crowdfunding page states that the core games were created long before the advent of generative AI, and the team only used AI tools to assist in creating the game selection menu and packaging artwork that aligns with the original style.
After reviewing publicly available materials, the author found that Ecco wears different shoes across three cover images, while the wizard Zaks sports different hats in two illustrations. Moreover, the number of fingers varies between images. In one promotional image published by Retro Gamer magazine, Zaks has six fingers on one hand and five on the other; another image on the crowdfunding page shows yet a different count.
The Oliver Brothers emphasize that humans remain responsible for design, creation, testing, review, and correction throughout the process. AI does not replace creative direction nor the team's accountability for the final product. Philip Oliver stated that producing the project traditionally with just two people would require at least a year of scheduling, and leveraging such tools is what makes certain projects feasible.
The author rejects this explanation, arguing that the promotional art fails to maintain consistency in basic details like character fingers, exposing clear quality control issues. He questions whether the team's efforts to shorten production time and reduce costs will also lead to a decline in the final product's quality.