It's been a hell of an award season for the year's most talked about RPG, but two of its accolades just got knocked off the scorecard. The Indie Game Awards, which awarded Sandfall Interactive with Game of the Year and Best Debut Game on Dec 18, posted a video to Bluesky yesterday explaining that the game is retroactively disqualified for its use of generative AI in development.
"We have a hard stance against gen AI in videogames, it's something we talk about throughout the year when discussing any potential nominees," Mike Towndrow of the IGA nomination committee said in the video. "On the day of the premiere, Sandfall Interactive did, in fact, confirm that gen AI was used in the making of Expedition 33." He continues that, previously, the studio had agreed "that no gen AI was used in the making of the game when it was submitted to us for consideration."
The IGAs Nomination Committee is officially retracting Debut Game and Game of the Year, awarding both categories to new recipients. Additionally, we are retracting one of the Indie Vanguard recipients. Full details can be found in our FAQ under Game Eligibility: www.indiegameawards.gg/faq
— @indiegameawards.gg (@indiegameawards.gg.bsky.social) 2025-12-21T15:39:58.924Z
Notably, seemingly AI-generated textures were spotted by fans online in Clair Obscur mere days after it released in April. The textures highlighted in the screenshot were quietly removed soon after, referred to in a patch note as a "placeholder texture."
In June, an interview in El País saw Sandfall cofounder François Meurisse admit the studio used "some AI, but not much" (Google translated), but the article has been updated to state that "there is no element made with generative AI in the game."
The Indie Game Awards' new winners for Best Debut Game and Game of the Year are now Sorry We're Closed and Blue Prince, respectively.
It will be interesting to see what impact this has moving forward. Devs of hotly anticipated RPGs like Divinity have already admitted to using generative AI in development, and big studios like Ubisoft are letting it slip into final builds, content to touch it up once it's noticed.
While there's an argument to be had whether the decidedly AA Sandfall should have been up for an indie award in the first place, it seems clear that AI is the bigger sticking point for people—at least within the Indie Game Awards nomination team.
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