I have a lot of thoughts about this whole Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Gen-AI debacle. I've been researching it in detail the past few days and I wanted to share these thoughts and point out a few things. (also inb4 I get accused of being biased since I like this game and franchise - like yeah Of Course I do, that's why I'm writing this but also being critical)
First, here is something from the original El País article where the journalist, Jorge Morla, interviewed François Meurisse from Sandfall Interactive in one part of the article:
this is at the top of the article now. very clearly states that no generative AI-created assets are in the game, the only instance of it was a temporary placeholder for textures back in 2022 - but were removed with correct textures (and is art made by the team) that had always been intended for release. The placeholders ones were accidentally missed during a QA check. As a former QA checker in my last job, sometimes a few things get missed even in multiple passes so I feel this pain. additionally, it's possible that the pre-existing assets that were used were sourced from the Unreal Engine marketplace or any other free programs they were using. (Btw, this incident of the placeholder being left in happened way back in April and got patched out pretty quickly when it was brought to attention.)
I want to make it clear that I'm not excusing Sandfall's usage of Gen-AI and they definitely could've gone a different route when it came to placeholder texture assets (but more thoughts down below). Considering how much I've had to deal with Gen-AI stuff this year with a bunch of students using things like ChatGPT to do their homework, I will also personally never use Gen-AI for any of my academic or creative writing/art, and I dislike this technology in general.
But I think that people immediately bashing on e33 for "always being a bad game," calling it slop, and dismissing it because of this specific instance are just assuming huge chunks or even the entirety of the game was made with Gen AI when... that's not the case at all? Here's another part of the article:
this is the part that many other news sources and headlines are hyper focusing on since the recent news of the Indie Game Awards disqualifying e33 due to Gen AI usage, likely because of the fact that François Meurisse said, "We use some AI, but not much." Again, I'm not excusing Gen AI - but are we forgetting that AI in of itself exists in so many other forms - HAS existed in many forms - and has been a huge part of the technology used to create a video game? Even in the spellcheck and autocorrect features on the Office products I use for work, school, and writing has always been AI tech. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of these programs are now utilizing new tools, calling it AI (buzzwords for everything lately) when you and I know it's just Gen-AI and LLM stuff that's largely unregulated, doesn't work correctly, and most of the time users are not allowed to opt out (I did on my personal devices/accounts, but I can't on my work device/accounts).
In any case, I'm not mad about them getting disqualified for this specific award and think it was justified because 1) I don't even consider it an indie game to begin with so idk why it was nominated in the first place lol, and 2) yes, there was just one instance of Gen-AI in the development stage which broke the rules of the nomination to begin with. Personally, this game is easily my GOTY for 2025, especially having just recently finished the main story endings just a few days ago. The amount of hard, human work that was put into this - from years of development, the art, the mocap, the voice acting, the music - I know this game was a huge labor of love and collaboration.
Am I upset about this use of Gen-AI? Well, admittedly yes, and it almost felt like a slap in the face since this game is so focused on art, creation, and painting, but I'm also - and don't get mad at me when I say this - not completely dismissing the entirety of the game because of this either. I also don't feel "betrayed" like how many people have been feeling, or think Sandfall is hiding things from us. A part of it is because, as I stated above, that this instance happened around 2022 and honestly, let's not pretend we didn't know people who were using Gen-AI at the time before knowing more about it, too, especially since the technology was so new (y'all remember Dall-E 2?). This seems like a case of it being used once as an experiment, and then literally never again as stated in the first screenshot I posted about how there is no Gen-AI in the rest of the game and final product at all.
It's just sad to me that this technology has evolved way too fast in such a short period of time, and quite frankly I think there's just a lot understandable fear and anxiety due to this AI market and bubble replacing jobs, and companies pushing us towards over reliance. I think this whole thing is just scary for a lot of people, which I totally understand and have my own fears as I continue into my new field of study and aim for Librarianship. I've been seeing a lot of criticism towards this whole thing where people are saying it's a "slippery slope" wherein one usage will lead to more and more. I get where this stance is coming from, because we've been seeing it happen in real time with so many companies and studios. Hell, the amount of actual and unregulated Gen-AI slop video games I've seen lately has been insane. You can easily tell when a game is strictly Gen-AI and nothing else, which e33 clearly isn't.
But with this, there's also a flip side - there are people who DID dabble in Gen-AI without knowing about its harm, eventually learned from their mistakes, took the time to educate themselves, and stopped using it entirely. Again, using my students as an example, one simple conversation and explaining why they shouldn't use things like ChaptGPT has led them to not rely on it anymore. This is something that can (hopefully) happen with many more developers to come. Of course, I don't want Sandfall or any other developers to rely on Gen-AI going forward in development processes and I DO want accountability, but I think it's safe to say that Sandfall is doing that and not doubling down on defending the usage (unlike some other studios out there, staring at you Larian) - I think they've been very transparent from the start.
I'm no game developer, but I'm a college teacher and current Information & Library Sciences MS student who has been learning more and more about the fundamentals of digital tech & software in the aid and use of information searching, and how this impacts us and different information behaviors. Clearly we're already seeing the impacts with this whole e33 thing, but also including other games like Blue Prince being falsely accused of using Gen-AI when it wasn't used at all (x). So, as we enter into the new year, with the AI bubble likely to burst soon, with more and more people grouping everything as AI, my questions are this: as more games are being released, how do we determine what lines developers can and cannot cross with AI when it comes to their development? Are we still going to conflate AI and Gen-AI as being the same thing? Is there going to be more education about the difference between what's AI and Gen-AI? Will there be better regulation on the usage of AI? and finally: If Sandfall or any other dev studio creates a new game and uses pre-built assets from other programs who don't disclose their Gen-AI usage, then what comes next?
As I said in the beginning, these are just my thoughts. I know I didn't touch on other aspects about Gen-AI, like environmental or cognitive impacts. For the purpose of this post, it wasn't really relevant as I was just thinking of the gaming sphere and recent critiques. This is just my piece to the ongoing conversation - and is something I look forward to exploring more as my next semester begins and I'm able to observe more impacts.
I've hyperlinked the sources I used within my post, but I'll also share the links directly down below as a kind of makeshift works cited page, including a Polygon article from today (12/22/25) that also discusses tensions over AI use in the gaming industry moving forward:
Low-budget films like ‘Flow’ and ‘The Brutalist’ and video games like Clair Obscur are competing with major productions thanks to accessible
Sandfall Interactive and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been stripped of its wins at The Indie Game Awards due to use of generative AI.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's GOTY retraction signals the start of something huge
The link with The Escapist article that accused Blue Prince of using Gen-AI was taken down since it was proven wrong, but this is an archived link if you want to see how crazy it was. It wasn't embedding, so I hyperlinked it above but also here. And here's the bsky post by Raw Fury that disproved the Gen-AI claim, hyperlinked here.
Anyway, thanks for reading! I know this was a lot 😭
“Most political consultants are not media experts, and overwhelmingly, they do not understand how to build trust with audiences. And unfortunately, the bulk of the well funded Dem media projects are run, not by experienced media entrepreneurs or journalists or influencers who’ve proven they know what they’re doing, but by political consultants and ex political consultants.”
—
Why Dems Keep Screwing Up Media Efforts
This is a very good article, that is worth your time.
Got that final conversation with Sciel and HOO. HOO BOY. I always gravitated toward Sciel but I completely get why now. Hell, I even thought about doing it the same way once.
But to know that Esquie, the lovable marshmallow, is who saved her? He probably had all his rocks, but he saw her and saved her because that's who he is. And that's who Real Verso painted him to be. A light in the darkest moments. The whee in the whoo, if you will.
It makes me think of all the times art - whether it's writing, music, videography, photography, actual art, another medium I've forgotten - has saved others. How it saved me, once. I can't help but feel this game is a love letter to the art that's saved lives, in a way. This game is a lot of things, of course - commentary on grief, letting go, continuing on in general - but I just can't help but feel this very specific message.
If anyone actually reads this -- I am still in the beginning of Act 3 and haven't faced Renoir yet, so no spoilers please!!
This is literally how I found out that the veilguard was coming out. I found out THROUGH TUMBLR Of all things! Thank you kind stranger for ending my 10 year wait.
don't get too excited, it's definitely the worst dragon age game imo :( I really enjoyed the combat and some of the elvhen lore they expanded on, though, so you should definitely play it if you want to! just maybe buy it on sale 😅
(also yes I was fooled by the mask icon. also why are replies turned off on my own post.)
Friendly reminder that as devastating as THAT scene is, y'all better leave Kaitlyn Dever THE FUCK alone. Hate Abby all you want, but Kaitlyn is an actress and a real human. Do NOT repeat what happened to Laura Bailey. Okay thx bye
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