Why Blue Prince Is At The Center Of The AI In Games Debate
Generative AI has become one of the hottest and most controversial topics in gaming. Throughout 2025 it has sparked arguments about creativity, ethics and what really counts as an indie game. Awards shows, developers and players are all trying to figure out where they stand.
Blue Prince, a critically praised indie that won Game of the Year at the Indie Game Awards and also took Best Design in PC Gamer's 2025 Game of the Year awards, suddenly found itself dragged into this debate. Not because it used AI but because people thought it did.
The situation shows how sensitive the community has become about AI and why developers are now having to publicly prove that their games are fully human made.
How The Confusion Around Blue Prince Started
The spark came from a now edited and partially retracted article on The Escapist. In the middle of wider coverage about awards and generative AI, the piece suggested that Blue Prince had used generative AI in development and that AI generated content was still present in the final game.
This landed at a bad moment. Another game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, had just been disqualified from the Indie Game Awards after judges learned generative AI was used in its development. The awards body took what it called a hard stance against generative AI in videogames. Around the same time, Larian Studios admitted to using generative AI internally to explore ideas during development, which kicked off yet another wave of online debate.
With everyone already on edge about AI, the suggestion that Blue Prince was using it made the game an instant talking point. Players and commentators started to question whether its awards and its indie status were still valid if AI played any role in how it was made.
But in this case, the accusation simply was not true.
Raw Fury Steps In To Defend A Human Made Game
In response to the Escapist article and the community speculation that followed, Blue Prince publisher Raw Fury made a very clear public statement. Posting on X, the company wrote:
For people that need confirmation: There is no AI used in Blue Prince. The game was built and crafted with full human instinct by Tonda Ros and his team. It is the result of eight years of development, fuelled by imagination and creativity, and we are extremely proud of what Tonda has achieved.
That is about as direct as it gets. Raw Fury wanted to shut down any talk that generative AI had touched the project at any point. The message also underlined how long the game has been in the works. Eight years of development does not exactly line up with the very recent explosion of generative AI tools.
The developer itself, Dogubomb, did not post a separate statement but did repost Raw Fury’s message, effectively backing it and letting the publisher speak on its behalf. The Escapist article that sparked the confusion has since been edited and the specific claim about AI use in Blue Prince has been walked back.
What is unusual here is not a publisher defending one of its games. It is the context: we now live in a time where studios feel they have to explicitly clarify that a game is 100 percent human made. The default assumption for some players is starting to shift toward suspicion that AI might be hiding somewhere in the pipeline.
What This Says About The Future Of AI In Games
The Blue Prince situation is a small story, but it points at a much bigger trend. Generative AI is not going away. As we move into 2026 it is likely to play a larger role in how games are created, from concept art and dialog ideas to quest outlines and even code.
For some players and award bodies, any AI involvement is a deal breaker. They want the games they support to be built entirely by people. That is why the Indie Game Awards chose to disqualify a title after learning generative AI was part of its production. Their stance is clear and strict.
Other parts of the industry are taking a more experimental view, treating AI as just another tool for brainstorming or speeding up certain tasks. Larian’s admission that it uses generative AI to explore ideas internally is one example. The game itself is still written, designed and built by humans, but AI might help sketch out rough concepts before the real work happens.
For gamers, the main challenge over the next few years will be deciding what they are comfortable with. Some might not want any AI involved at all, especially when it touches art, writing or voice work. Others might be fine with AI assisted workflows as long as the final result still feels handcrafted and creative.
What is clear is that transparency is becoming essential. Players want to know how a game was made. Developers and publishers are starting to include that information in their communication, whether it is to admit using generative tools or to firmly deny it like Raw Fury did with Blue Prince.
Blue Prince being wrongly linked to AI is a reminder that in the current climate, even a hint of generative AI can change how people view a game. For developers who spend years crafting worlds and systems by hand, that makes it more important than ever to explain their process and protect their work from assumptions.
As discussion around AI continues to heat up, expect to see more studios clearly labeling how their games are made, more award shows setting specific rules, and more debates about what counts as truly indie and truly human made. Blue Prince just happened to be one of the first to get caught in the crossfire.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/puzzle/blue-prince-is-the-result-of-8-years-of-development-fuelled-my-imagination-and-creativity-not-ai-says-publisher/
