Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took home the Game of the Year and Debut Game wins at the Indie Game Awards on Thursday, but just two days later, the IGAs rescinded both honors from developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive.
The reason? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 released with AI-generated assets. These were patched out days later, but the IGA policy clearly states, “Games developed using generative AI are strictly ineligible for nomination.”
Per the Indie Game Awards FAQ page,
The Indie Game Awards have a hard stance on the use of gen AI throughout the nomination process and during the ceremony itself. When it was submitted for consideration, a representative of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of gen AI art in production on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination. While the assets in question were patched out and it is a wonderful game, it does go against the regulations we have in place. As a result, the IGAs nomination committee has agreed to officially retract both the Debut Game and Game of the Year awards.
In June, Sandfall Interactive co-founder and producer François Meurisse told the Spanish outlet El País that it “used some AI, but not much” in the development of Expedition 33. He added, “The key is that we were very clear about what we wanted to do and where to invest our efforts. And, of course, technology has allowed us to do things that were unthinkable not long ago.”
At the top of the El País article, there now exists the following addendum:
Following the publication of this article, Sandfall Interactive wishes to provide the following clarifications.
The studio states that it was in contact with El País on April 25—three months prior to this publication. During these exchanges, Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a limited number of pre-existing assets, notably 3D assets sourced from the Unreal Engine Marketplace. None of these assets were created using artificial intelligence.
Sandfall Interactive further clarifies that there are no generative Al-created assets in the game. When the first Al tools became available in 2022, some members of the team briefly experimented with them to generate temporary placeholder textures. Upon release, instances of a placeholder texture were removed within 5 days to be replaced with the correct textures that had always been intended for release, but were missed during the Quality Assurance process.
Although some players noted gen AI textures in the game upon launch, the information wasn’t widespread. Meurisse’s comments resurfaced right before the Indie Game Awards ceremony, prompted by a Bloomberg interview with Larian Studios founder and CEO Swen Vincke in which he said that the company is using AI tools to develop its forthcoming game, Divinity.
Backlash was swift and loud. As reported by PC Gamer, Larian has since said that nothing AI-generated will actually appear in its games. It also denies using AI to generate concept art—but many fans have sworn to boycott Larian moving forward regardless of how they are using AI, for the simple fact that they are using it.
Generative AI is largely trained on stolen work from millions of creators, and it’s creating a major environmental crisis. It’s also causing a significant shortage of RAM, the memory needed to operate computers. Ironically, Larian Studios has made comments about needing to optimize Divinity because of the RAM shortage, which is being caused by the very AI that it’s using in its development process.
In regards to Expedition 33‘s use of AI-generated textures as “placeholders” upon launch, it’s true that developers frequently use placeholder art that is later patched out for the real thing—especially if they are working under crunch conditions. However, generative AI is causing significant harm to creative industries and the planet, making it hard to swallow its usage here.
Ultimately, the IGAs are right to not only follow its anti-AI policy, but to enforce it without prejudice.
The IGAs have notified “the next highest-ranked game in its respective category” of their subsequent wins following Expedition 33‘s disqualification. Game of the Year has been awarded to Blue Prince and Debut Game has been awarded to Sorry We’re Closed. The teams behind each game have been invited to record acceptance speeches, which will be released in early 2026.
