Indie Game Awards Clash With Generative AI
The debate around generative AI in game development just hit a new flashpoint. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, one of the most talked about RPGs of the year, has had two major awards revoked after the Indie Game Awards discovered generative AI was used during development.
Sandfall Interactive originally walked away with Game of the Year and Best Debut Game at the Indie Game Awards on December 18. But shortly after, the organizers posted a video on Bluesky explaining that the game has now been retroactively disqualified.
According to Mike Towndrow from the Indie Game Awards nomination committee, the show has a strict stance against generative AI in video games. He explained that when Expedition 33 was first submitted, the studio confirmed that no generative AI tools had been used in making the game. On the day of the premiere however, Sandfall admitted that generative AI was in fact part of their development process.
As a result, the committee is retracting both Game of the Year and Best Debut Game from Clair Obscur. Those awards are now being handed to two other indie titles: Sorry We Are Closed takes Best Debut Game, while Blue Prince steps up as the new Game of the Year.
AI Textures, Fan Scrutiny, And Mixed Messages
Clair Obscur had already been under the microscope from PC players and fans long before this awards drama. Shortly after the game launched in April, sharp eyed players spotted what looked like AI generated textures in game screenshots shared online.
The textures that raised suspicion did not stay in the game for long. They were removed in a later update and described in the patch notes as a placeholder texture. That phrasing did little to calm concerns, especially in a year where more and more developers are experimenting with AI assisted art and asset pipelines.
The communication around AI use at Sandfall has also shifted over time. In June, the Spanish outlet El País ran an interview with studio cofounder François Meurisse. In that piece, Meurisse was quoted as saying the team had used some AI, but not much during development. Later, the article was updated to say that there is no element made with generative AI in the final game, which only added to the confusion for players following the story.
The Indie Game Awards committee, however, clearly felt that the studio’s initial submission and later admission did not line up. Since one of their eligibility rules explicitly rejects games that use generative AI, they decided to strip the awards and update their FAQ to clarify the decision.
What This Means For PC Gaming And Future RPGs
This controversy is part of a much wider battle inside the games industry, especially for PC gamers who are used to scrutinizing visuals, performance, and production pipelines in detail. Generative AI is becoming more accessible, from AI assisted concept art to texture generation and even AI written dialogue and quests. That reality is forcing awards shows, publishers, and players to decide where they draw the line.
The Indie Game Awards is taking one of the hardest stances so far: if generative AI is used, the game is not eligible, period. That is very different from the approach of some larger studios and publishers, who are increasingly comfortable letting AI assisted content ship as long as it is touched up by artists afterward.
We have already seen examples of this in high profile PC games. Ubisoft recently had to quietly polish an AI generated art asset that slipped into Anno 117, after fans pointed it out and voiced frustration that it was there at all. Other developers of big RPGs, including studios behind series like Divinity, have openly acknowledged experimenting with generative AI during development and are preparing to answer questions directly from their communities.
For PC players, this raises several questions.
- How much AI involvement is acceptable in the games they buy
- Should awards and festivals treat AI assisted games differently from fully hand crafted projects
- Can smaller indie teams realistically compete if they avoid AI tools while others adopt them to cut time and cost
There is also an ongoing argument about whether games like Clair Obscur even fit comfortably in the indie space. With AA level production values and bigger budgets than many traditional indie teams, some players feel these projects already blur the line. The use of generative AI only sharpens that debate, especially when awards designed to celebrate small scale creativity are involved.
What is clear is that generative AI is not going away. More upcoming PC games are likely to use it somewhere in the pipeline, whether for rapid prototyping, background art, or other assets that might not be obvious on screen. At the same time, pockets of the industry, like the Indie Game Awards, are pushing back and trying to protect a space where everything is guaranteed to be human made.
For now, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 remains a talked about RPG, just no longer an award winning one in the eyes of the Indie Game Awards. Its removal from the winner’s list will probably not stop players from trying it on PC, but it does send a strong signal to other developers: if you want indie recognition from certain corners of the scene, generative AI might come with a serious cost.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/indie-game-awards-pulls-two-awards-from-clair-obscur-over-generative-ai-use-we-have-a-hard-stance-against-gen-ai-in-videogames/
