Indie Sport Awards Strips Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 of Sport of the Yr Over Gen AI, Dev Says ‘Placeholder’ Textures Have been Patched Out After Slipping By means of QA Course of

Recent from receiving the Sport of the Yr award at The Sport Awards 2025, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been stripped of two awards from the Indie Sport Awards after its use of generative AI hit the headlines.

Sandfall Interactive’s record-breaking role-playing sport launched with some placeholder textures constructed with generative AI. The developer patched them out 5 days after launch, insisting they made the reduce by mistake. This went underneath the radar till not too long ago, when feedback from Sandfall co-founder and producer François Meurisse reemerged.

Chatting with El País for an article revealed in July, Meurisse mentioned: “We use some AI, however not a lot. The secret’s that we had been very clear about what we needed to do and what to put money into. And, in fact, know-how has allowed us to do issues that had been unthinkable a short while in the past. Unreal Engine 5’s instruments and belongings have been essential in enhancing the graphics, gameplay, and cinematics.”

Meurisse’s remark resurfaced amid a backlash to feedback from Larian boss Swen Vincke within the wake of the developer’s high-profile announcement of Divinity at The Sport Awards. The unique information got here from a Bloomberg interview through which Vincke mentioned that Larian was “pushing laborious” [Bloomberg’s phrasing] on generative AI, although it hasn’t led to large good points in effectivity. Particularly, the studio was mentioned to be utilizing the know-how to “discover concepts, flesh out PowerPoint shows, develop idea artwork and write placeholder textual content.” [again, Bloomberg’s phrasing].

Vincke later addressed the backlash, and has promised an AMA to reply questions from followers. All of the whereas, a light-weight has been shone on Clair Obscur, which leads us to the Indie Sport Awards.

Clair Obscur had received Sport of the Yr and Debut Sport from the Indie Sport Awards, however each awards at the moment are retracted. Explaining the choice, the Indie Sport Awards mentioned:

The Indie Sport Awards have a tough stance on using gen AI all through the nomination course of and throughout the ceremony itself. When it was submitted for consideration, a consultant of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used within the growth of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In mild of Sandfall Interactive confirming using gen AI artwork in manufacturing on the day of the Indie Sport Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination. Whereas the belongings in query had been patched out and it’s a fantastic sport, it does go in opposition to the laws we’ve got in place. Because of this, the IGAs nomination committee has agreed to formally retract each the Debut Sport and Sport of the Yr awards.

Every award went to the following highest-ranked sport in its respective class; Sorry We’re Closed now has Debut Sport, and Blue Prince now has Sport of the Yr.

In the meantime, El País has up to date its authentic article to incorporate a press release from Sandfall clarifying its use of generative AI within the making of Clair Obscur:

The studio states that it was involved with El País on April 25 — three months previous to this publication. Throughout these exchanges, Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a restricted variety of pre-existing belongings, notably 3D belongings sourced from the Unreal Engine Market. None of those belongings had been created utilizing synthetic intelligence.

Sandfall Interactive additional clarifies that there are not any generative Al-created belongings within the sport. When the primary Al instruments grew to become accessible in 2022, some members of the crew briefly experimented with them to generate short-term placeholder textures. Upon launch, cases of a placeholder texture had been eliminated inside 5 days to get replaced with the proper textures that had at all times been supposed for launch, however had been missed throughout the High quality Assurance course of.

And right here’s Vincke’s newest assertion in full:

It’s been per week since we introduced Divinity, our subsequent RPG, and loads has grow to be misplaced in translation.

Larian’s DNA is company. The whole lot we work in direction of is to the good thing about our groups, video games, and gamers. A greater work day, and a greater sport. Our successes come from empowering individuals to work in their very own means and produce the very best out of their talent & craft, in order that we will make the very best RPGs we will presumably make.

In that context, it could be irresponsible for us to not consider new applied sciences. Nevertheless, our processes are at all times evolving, and the place they don’t seem to be environment friendly or fail to align with who we’re, we are going to make modifications.

To offer you extra perception, we’ll do an AMA that includes our totally different departments after the vacation break, through which you’ll get the chance to ask us any questions you’ve gotten about Divinity and our dev course of instantly.

We’ll announce the date within the new 12 months. Within the meantime, I want you all completely happy holidays!

Glorious, the AI generated textures in Clair Obscur had been certainly placeholders and had been changed with customized belongings. The opposite AI generated poster that was current within the beginning space (haven’t got a screenshot of it now) was additionally eliminated. pic.twitter.com/5xgqsCmZpC

— Nyanomancer (@nyanomancer) April 30, 2025

The usage of generative AI in online game growth is among the hottest matters within the trade. Final month, we reported that Murderer’s Creed writer Ubisoft was compelled to take away a picture discovered inside Anno 117: Pax Romana that contained AI-generated parts after followers complained, and Name of Obligation: Black Ops 7 gamers took to social media to complain about AI-generated pictures they’d discovered throughout the sport, following a pattern of AI-Ghibli pictures from earlier this 12 months.

The Alters developer, 11 Bit Studios, and Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer, Frontier Developments, in the meantime, equally confronted fan backlash after they had been caught utilizing undisclosed AI pictures. EA CEO Andrew Wilson has mentioned AI is “the very core of our enterprise,” and Sq. Enix not too long ago applied mass layoffs and reorganized, saying it wanted to be “aggressive in making use of AI.” Lifeless Area creator Glen Schofield additionally not too long ago detailed his plans to “repair” the trade partly by way of using generative AI in sport growth, and former God of Battle dev Meghan Morgan Juinio has mentioned: “… if we don’t embrace [AI], I believe we’re promoting ourselves quick.”

As the talk round using generative AI to construct video video games rages on, Tim Sweeney, boss of Fortnite developer Epic Video games, has waded in to name on Valve to ditch its AI Generated Content material Disclosure for Steam video games.

Valve’s guidelines imply builders should disclose their use of AI-generated content material on a sport’s Steam retailer web page. For instance, the Steam web page for Embark Studios’ Arc Raiders features a observe from the developer on how the sport makes use of AI-generated content material: “throughout the growth course of, we might use procedural- and AI-based instruments to help with content material creation. In all such circumstances, the ultimate product displays the creativity and expression of our personal growth crew.”

Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.