Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took home the Game of the Year and Debut Game honors at the Indie Game Awards on Thursday, but the teams at developer Sandfall Interactive and publisher Kepler Interactive couldn’t celebrate for long. On Saturday, the Indie Game Awards retracted Clair Obscur‘s honors due to inclusion of generative AI assets at launch that were quickly patched out.
As detailed on the Indie Game Awards’ FAQ page, the organization states that “representatives of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” when the game was submitted for awards consideration. “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.” Though the AI generated assets were patched out, their initial inclusion was enough for the Indie Game Awards to disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and retract its awards.
Polygon has reached out to Sandfall Interactive’s representatives for comment.
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
— The Indie Game Awards (@indiegameawards.gg) 2025-12-20T18:45:10.232Z
Quotes from earlier in the year from Sandfall Interactive’s François Meurisse made the rounds on social media last week amid a news cycle caught up in the use of generative AI in games, sparked by comments from Larian Studios’ Swen Vincke, who said Larian is using AI tools to develop the forthcoming Divinity. Sandfall Interactive had previously admitted to use of gen AI in developing Clair Obscur. In June, the Spanish outlet El País published a story including an interview conducted around Clair Obscur‘s launch, in which Meurisse admitted that Sandfall used a minimal amount generative AI in some form during the game’s development.
“We used some AI, but not much,” he said (via Google Translate). “The key is that we were very clear about what we wanted to do and where to invest our efforts. And, of course, technology has allowed us to do things that were unthinkable not long ago.”
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched with what some suspected to be AI-generated textures that were then replaced with custom assets in a swift patch. Users on X and Reddit spotted the AI assets, but awareness of them wasn’t very widespread. Sandfall and Clair Obscur received nowhere near as much backlash as, say, 11 Bit Studios did for The Alters, which also included AI-generated background assets.
For now, the Indie Game Awards is honoring two other games in the categories that Clair Obscur won, with awards “going to the next highest-ranked game in its respective category,” according to an explainer on its website. The Debut Game award will go to We’re Closed while the Indie Game Awards’ Game of the Year honor will be bestowed upon Blue Prince (Polygon’s own best game of 2025). Expect acceptance speeches from the developers behind both those games to be shared in early 2026.
