A controversial free game is being removed from Steam later this month. Hardest, a sort of rock-paper-scissors roguelike that styles itself after Balatro, is set to be deleted from the Steam storefront on January 30. It's currently free-to-play, as it has been since its launch last July, but now, its creator says they've had a change of heart.
In a brief Steam Community post entitled "AI is bad," Hardest creator Eero Laine (AKA Rakuel) confesses that he used generative AI to develop much of the game. However, he says, "I have realized the AI is not actually free, and it has a major effect on the economy and environment," even while admitting this isn't a totally original idea: "The girl I've been dating for a month made me realize this."
Hardest was released on July 1, 2025, as a free-to-play Steam exclusive. Its store page describes it as a "Rock-Paper-Scissors Card Game Roguelike," in which players compete in a series of rock-paper-scissors matches aided by an arsenal of power-up cards.
Laine, who previously released the Mostly Positive-rated Homemade TCG in 2022, claims that he wrote all the code for...
