'I f**king hate gen AI art,' Hooded Horse chief says: 'If we're publishing the game, no f**king AI assets'

Knight holding a sword and standing in front of a red flag — (Image credit: Slavic Magic)

Different game companies approach generative AI in different ways. Some, like Electronic Arts, embrace it; others, like Larian, take a more measured, cautious approach. And then there's Hooded Horse, the publisher of games like Endless Legend 2, Cataclismo, and the breakout hit Manor Lords, whose CEO Tim Bender recently told Kotaku, "I fucking hate gen AI art."

"It has made my life more difficult in many ways…suddenly it infests shit in a way it shouldn't," Bender said. "It is now written into our contracts if we're publishing the game, 'no fucking AI assets'."

Banning AI art is easier said than done, as some studios—Larian and Sandfall Interactive, to name a couple high-profile examples—have taken to using gen AI in pre-production, ostensibly to help speed things along. To help counter that, Bender says he urges developers to not use generative AI anywhere, even just for placeholders.

"Because of that, we're constantly having to watch and deal with it and try to prevent it from slipping in, because it’s cancerous."

As unlikely as that sounds, it has happened, and more than once. Ubisoft had to quickly make changes to Anno 117 after "placeholder" art mistakenly made it to the live version of the game, and in a much higher-profile case Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, one of the biggest games of 2025, lost two wins in the Indie Game Awards after it too was found to have launched with "placeholder" gen AI art still in place.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

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