Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is considered one of the best games of 2025 and has won several Game of the Year awards. However, the developers now have to return two awards because they admitted to using AI.
When a game wins the Game of the Year award, it is usually a really good game. The titles that receive such awards year after year are recognized because they have advanced the medium of video games that year and inspired many people around the world.
This is also the case with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from French studio Sandfall Interactive. The dark fantasy role-playing game is considered one of the most outstanding games of 2025 and won the prestigious GotY award at this year’s Game Awards.
However, this success has now been marred by an incident at another awards ceremony: the organizers of the Indie Game Awards have retrospectively stripped the acclaimed role-playing game of two awards: the Game of the Year award and the award for Best Debut Game.
The reason is a violation of the awards’ strict regulations regarding artificial intelligence.
“Zero tolerance” for AI content
The Indie Game Awards have strict guidelines for dealing with generative AI: artificial intelligence may not be used during development or in the final game in order to be nominated. According to a statement by the organizers, Sandfall Interactive had explicitly assured this when submitting the game for the Indie Awards.
However, as it later transpired, this was not entirely true. The studio has since admitted that AI tools were used during production – albeit to a very limited extent. Specifically, this involved placeholder textures, such as for an advertising column with fantasy language in the starting area.
François Meurisse, producer at Sandfall Interactive, already explained to the Spanish daily newspaper El País that some placeholder images and assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace were used during development – but always with the intention of replacing them with handmade images and objects for the release.
A few textures were accidentally left in the game because they were overlooked during the quality assurance process. However, just five days after release, the affected elements were replaced with the correct assets via a patch.
Disqualification despite patch
However, this is no excuse for the Indie Game Awards jury. Since the use of AI only became public knowledge on the day of the award show, the committee felt compelled to disqualify Clair Obscur retroactively. The fact that the content has since been removed and that Expedition 33 is actually a wonderful game
does not change the fact that the rules were broken.p>
The prizes now go to the runners-up:
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- Game of the Year: Now goes to the genre mix Blue Prince.
- Debut Game: Goes to the survival horror game Sorry We’re Closed.
An industry-wide controversy
The incident adds fuel to the already heated AI debate in the gaming industry. Just recently, Swen Vincke, head of Baldur’s Gate 3 studio Larian, caused a shitstorm against him and his team. He confirmed that his team would definitely be using AI tools to support work processes for upcoming projects (such as the next Divinity), albeit only for brainstorming and not to replace human labor and creativity.
While many larger publishers in particular see the use of AI as a pragmatic and inevitable step into the future, the Indie Game Awards are setting an example with the disqualification of Clair Obscur: in the indie scene, human craftsmanship remains a non-negotiable quality feature for many.
