The Indie Game Awards has stripped Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 of two major awards, including Game of the Year and Debut Game. This is due to developer Sandfall Interactive’s use of generative AI, .
This looks to be fairly cut and dry. The awards ceremony that any game that uses generative AI in the development process would be “strictly ineligible” for nominations. It was recently revealed that Sandfall while making Clair Obscur.
The company says it was only for placeholder textures that were later removed, but a few squeezed past the QA process and and, as such, . The Indie Game Awards is clear about disallowing any use of generative AI and, so, here we are.
“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,” the organization wrote. “While the assets in question were patched out and it is a wonderful game, it does go against the regulations we have in place.”
Six One Indie, the company behind the ceremony, deserves a smidge of the blame here. These awards were initially handed out last week and we’ve known about the whole Clair Obscur AI thing for months. It says it didn’t discover Sandfall’s use of AI until December 18, the day the winners were announced. A Google search on December 17 likely would’ve helped. It is worth noting, however, that Sandfall did previously agree that no generative AI was used during development as part of the submission process.
In any event, the second-highest scoring titles in each category now gets the award. This means that Blue Prince is now Game of the Year and Sorry We’re Closed snags Debut Game.
Despite this AI controversy, Clair Obscur had a at this month’s The Game Awards. It won just about everything it was put up for, including . It also made our list of the . The developer announced that it had sold back in October. That number is surely much higher by now.
