Every Video Game Developer That Uses GenAI
Updated 4/2/26, adding Lutris, Nvidia, Unity, Valve, Kamaboko Kōsatsu Kōsatsu, and Quillo Entertainment. New information about Koei-Tecmo, Krafton, Warhorse, and Xbox was also added.
Updated 2/9/26, adding Blizzard, GOG, and the Oliver Twins.
Updated 1/27/26, adding Doug TenNapel, Superboo Studios, and XD International. More information about Ubsifoft was also added.
2025 was the year the video game industry hammered in the final nail of its coffin. As if selling itself to mega-corporations and Saudi Arabia weren’t bad enough, major studios across the world fully embraced generative AI. From story concepts and dialog, art, voice acting, and even coding, there isn’t a single aspect of video game development that hasn’t been corrupted by ChatGPT’s plagiarism.
I was frustrated by not being able to find a comprehensive list of every developer who uses AI, so I made my own. I don’t distinguish from a studio “only” using AI to plan or one going whole hog and using it for everything. Plagiarism is plagiarism. Though this list is composed only of studios who have stated they use AI or have been caught using it and have apologized after the fact. There are no studios on this list who have simply been accused without evidence.
I'll try to keep this list updated over the coming months and years.
Studios Using GenAI
11-Bit Studios
This War of Mine, Frostpunk, The Alters
The Alters should have been an indie gem in 2025, but was instead met with a backlash when it was found that 11-Bit used AI-generated text and images for the game. The game also used AI-translated text. The developer removed the AI text after complaints, though did not specify if they would use AI-generated assets in the future.
11-Bit did not disclaim the use of genAI on the game’s Steam page.
Amazon Games
Tomb Raider, The Lord of the Rings, New World
Amazon Games CEO Christoph Hartmann stated in a 2024 interview with IGN that he believes “will help us to have new gameplay ideas” and that it “has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone.” He then immediately followed that up with “If it takes something, it will be really the boring parts.” He said they were using AI to translate their games into other languages, stopping short of what else they were using AI for.
Arrowhead
Helldivers 2
Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani stated in an interview with The Game Business Show that genAI “actually makes gaming better.”
He then makes a wild statement, saying: “we have developers who feel that their livelihood… the very fabric of their being is being threatened, and therefore all AI is bad AI. Maybe, could it be, that reality is somewhere in the middle? Could it be?”
He claims he didn’t use AI in any part of development for Helldivers 2, but said “it can allow me to do my receipts faster, then that's more Helldivers for everyone.”
Bandai Namco
Code Vein, Tales of, Katamari, Pac-Man
Bandai Namco use AI to test video games. On the company’s website, Technical Director Yohei Hase described the process of creating an AI tool that takes control of characters for testing purposes. Hase doesn’t say what, if anything, else they use AI for, though later in the interview he says “I want to focus on using AI from a wider perspective to make all of the titles we create more fun.”
Blizzard
World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo
I wouldn’t have bothered including Blizzard on this list, as they are part of Activision-Blizzard, which in turn is part of Microsoft. However, in February 2026, Blizzard President Johanna Faries went out of his way to praise AI and that the company was open to using it.
“We do actually, at Blizzard, have a centralized governance team specifically focused on AI and the role it can or should play in our development cycles. What’s great about that is it’s very cross-functional, so you’re going to have voices from around the horn thinking about not just what’s hot-topic now, but where do we want to be five, 10 years from now?”
Like every other AI sycophant, he quickly pivoted to saying he wants to use AI “ethically” and to make sure it’s “secure” and how great human artists are.
Capcom
Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry
In an interview with Google Cloud Japan (via Automaton), Technical Director Kazuki Abe stated that Capcom are currently using genAI to create “hundreds of thousands of unique ideas” for games. He says they use a system that is fed a description of an idea, and the system pits out hundreds of ideas of where that base idea can be taken.
Colopl Games
Alice Gear Aeigs, Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter
An internal survey conducted by Japanese developer Colopl revealed that 80% of the developer’s staff use AI. Responses indicate that genAI is used from anything to brainstroming ideas, writing dialog, and coding. Copol previously partnered with Stable Diffusion, and have admitted to using AI generated art in their games.
Cygames
Granblue Fantasy, Umamusume: Pretty Derby
In January 2026, Cygames created Cygames AI Studio, a separate studio dedicated to creating genAI tools. The studio will create its own model using the “experience” of their game development studio to create genAI tools for “creators” to use “safely and securely.”
Don’t Nod
Jusant, Lost Records, Aphelion
In a January 2024 interview with Game Developer, Don’t Nod Executive Producer Luc Baghadoust and Creative Director Michel Koch spoke about the use of genAI in their (then) upcoming game Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. They said that while they don’t use genAI to write the game or create in-game art, they did say they use genAI to create concept art.
“The team has been using image-generating tools to speed up the concepting process for Lost Records, with team members using it to better communicate the ideas inside their head. Koch—who's a former illustrator and has deep experience with the concepting process—said that tools like Midjourney have a role in the "mood board" stage of concept design.”
Doug TenNapel
Earthworm Jim
For a game developer who hasn’t made a relevant game in over thirty years, Doug TenNapel sure gets a lot of attention. Its mostly negative, such as when he spouts homophobic and transphobic language and his support of Donald Trump.
In his usual attention-seeking style, he recently went on a rant against art and artists, saying that the “fine arts are a massive grift,” and that “gatekeepers refuse to tell stories most people wanted to see.” He said that “the empire died long before AI came along, so AI can’t be blamed for ‘stealing jobs’ from traditional animation.” He then went on to say how AI is a good thing for anyone who wants to “create,” saying that he himself isn’t a musician, implying that he could make music with AI.
EA
Battlefield, All the Sports, The Sims
The now Saudi-owned Electronic Arts have embraced genAI more than perhaps anyone. PCGamer reported last year that employees are required to use AI tools to do their work.
CEO Andrew Wilson stated in a 2025 financial call to investors that “AI is powering our future,” and that the technology is “a powerful accelerator of creativity, innovation, and player connection.” He went on and on like this, its all in the linked article if you feel like torturing yourself.
Most recently, players believe they found evidence of genAI art used in loot box cosmetic packs in Battlefield 6. What a sentence.
Embark
Arc Raiders, The Finals
Embark have double and tripled down on the use of genAI voice acting in their two most recent games, The Finals and Arc Raiders.
When it came to The Finals, Embark audio designers Carl Strandberg and Andreas Almström stated they indeed use genAI voice acting. Together, they said: “The reason that we went this route is that AI text-to-speech is extremely powerful. It gets us far enough in terms of quality, and allows us to be extremely reactive to new ideas.”
For Arc Raiders, CCO Stefan Strandberg had the audacity to say that the studio doesn’t use genAI at all, that the genAI voice acting is only text-to-speech. Even though their text-to-speech engine was trained using machine learning AI from real human actors.
Embark CEO Patrick Söderlund (yes, the same Patrick Söderlund that once led EA), made the absurd statement to GamesRadar last year that “I want us to build content a hundred times faster. If we aim for 10, we may get two, and probably can stay within the same parameters and just tweak. If your aspiration is to do something 100 times faster, you have to take everything you know and just throw it up in the air.” This was his justification for using not only genAI voices, but further use of AI in development.
Embracer
Payday, Darksiders, Saints Row
Embracer, the studio that purchased dozens of studios in the hopes to sell to Saudi Arabia, and then had to close many of those studios and layoff thousands after that deal fell through, is deeply concerned about ethics. CEO Phil Rogers called AI “a powerful multiplyer” during an annual studio meeting last year.
“In an industry defined by escalating development costs and limitless player expectations,” he said, “the question is no longer if a company will adopt a technology like AI, but how it leads with it? Our answer is a smart implementation of generative AI in ethical and sustainable ways. We really do view AI as a strategic catalyst. It's the most powerful technology or tool of our generation for driving efficiency, amplifying creativity, and ultimately delivering the high-quality, memorable games that players demand more effectively, more predictably, and more profitably than before.”
He couldn’t help himself, he really had to throw “more profitability” in there.
Epic Games
Fortnite
I was going to leave this entry at pointing out this article](link) in which Fortnite players thought they found genAI art in the latest season of the game.
However, as I was writing this, Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney went out of his way to defend Grok, Elon Musk’s genAI tool that is currently under fire for the ease at which it creates child pornography. In a statement, Sweeney went on a tirade, saying that anyone criticizing Grok are making “incessant demands to all gatekeepers to censor all of their political opponents.” He defended AI companies, saying “All major AIs have documented instances of going off the rails; all major AI companies make their best efforts to combat this; none are perfect.”
When somebody asked him if he realized people were mad at Grok for generating CSAM, he said that he defends “open platforms”, that he opposes wrongdoing, and again double-down saying that other genAI tools have had “instances of this” and are “imperfect.”
I’m trying to keep my opinion out of this blog and present the facts, but this man is a real piece of work.
Frontier Developments
Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Coaster
Jurassic World Evolution 3 used character portraits that were generated with AI. Following player backlash, Frontier issued an apology and claimed they would remove them from the game. They did not say whether genAI was used for any other aspect of the game, or whether they would use it in the future.
Frontier did not disclaim the use of genAI on the game’s Steam page.
Gaijin Entertainment
War Thunder, Enlisted, Aces of
Gaijin Entertainment announced an “AI-assisted” platform in October 2025 that “lets independent developers make their games accessible to console users hassle-free and truly own the code of their creations.” In the press release announcing this, Gaijin stated that “newcomers can rely on AI-assisted tools to generate art, sound, and gameplay logic, or simply build worlds using plain prompts.”
GOG
Gog.com
GOG don’t make games, but as one of the largest digital distributors of games, they’re worth talking about. GOG have gone all-in on AI in recent months. In early January 2026, they listed a job posting for a Senior Software Engineer, in which one of the job requirements is “Active use of AI tools in daily development workflows, and enthusiasm for helping the team increase adoption.”
Only a week later, GOG posted a banner for an ongoing sale using AI generated art. It took days of bad press and negative fan reaction (including a GOG employee calling out the company) for a representative to finally respond, saying that the image was posted by mistake but that the company would continue to use AI to “push the company forward.”
For a storefront that prides itself on making old and obscure games playable on modern hardware, it’s a chilling thought that even old games aren’t safe from generative AI.
Jeremy Johnston
The Rootrees Are Dead
Jeremy Johnston, creator of 2025’s indie sleeper hit The Rootrees Are Dead used genAI artwork extensively throughout the creation of the game. The initial browser game version used exclusively AI generated art. Johnston uses the excuse of creating the game during a game jam for the art, despite thousands of creators making games for game jams for decades without needing AI artwork.
When the game was expanded and brought over to Steam, an artist was brought on, Henning Ludvigsen, to make the new art. Though he admits to using the original genAI as a “kind of concept sketch.” The final Steam version’s clearly has that “AI art” look to it.
Kamaboko Kōsatsu Kōsatsu
Typing Magician Rip-off
This story, via Automaton, is the perfect example of why generative AI is such a catastrophic threat. Japanese YouTuber Kamaboko released several development log videos on his YouTube channel for a game he was working on called Typing Magician. Not long after he started, somebody calling themselves “Kamaboko Kōsatsu Kōsatsu” released their own Typing Magician. This was not the same Kamaboko, nor the same Typing Magician. This released version was a game that was entirely AI generated, copying the footage the real Kamaboko posted on YouTube.
The fake Kamaboko said they “made” the game in about two hours, that “game development is incredibly easy,” that it “can be done with about the same skill level as working part-time at a convenience store.” They admitted to ripping off the real Kamaboko, but that you can’t “copyright an idea,” which isn’t how any of that works.The worst part? Within a day, this “game” got over 30,000 downloads. The website that hosts the game won’t take it down, and the real Kamaboko has seemingly gone silent after posting a warning about the imposter.
Kenzo Games
Hood Story
The Steam page for Hood Story: Kaito Yamazaki states that AI generated voice acting was used for the English version. Key art for the game is also AI generated.
Koei Tecmo
Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Nioh
Managing Executive Officer & Manager of Legal Affairs at Koei Tecmo (what a title) Chitoshi Nishimura stated in an interview with 4Gamer (via Siliconera) that the company will use genAI, though didn’t specify in what capacity.
“We’re treating it as a tool among many,” he said. “The company’s current position is that we will use it if it proves useful.” He went on to say that he does not think gamers care if genAI is used in game development or not, proving wildly out of touch.
Update 4/2/26: Koei-Tecmo have signed a deal with SpiralAI, a tech startup that specializes in “developing character-based conversational AI.” They’ve created Geppetto2, an AI chatbot designed specifically to work with video games. As you can guess, Koei-Tecmo plans to use the tech in-game, allowing you to talk to characters in-game.
Konami
Metal Gear, Silent Hill, Castlevania
Konami promoted Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship 2025 with AI generated commentary, trained on actress Hibiku Yamamura without her consent or knowledge. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship isn’t a video game, so there’s a chance that this was done by a different division than Konami’s gaming side. However, since the company overall thought this was okay, there’s a very good chance they’re using AI in other aspects, including game development.
Krafton
Subnautica 2, Hi-Fi Rush, inZOI
Krafted stated late in 2025 that they want to become an “AI-first company,” going so far as to offer a voluntary resignation program to its employees who don’t want to work with AI. The company will undertake a “complete” reorganization, investing some $70 million in a new GPU cluster, and another $21 million to “retrain” their remaining employees on how to use these new “tools.”
Update 4/2/26: Krafton has signed a deal with weapons manufacturer Hanwha Aerospace to work with them on “developing and commercializing technology across various sectors, including defense,” with an emphasis on “physical AI.”
The deal specifically mentions Krafton will aid Hanwha in developing weapons, stating the deal allows them “to develop and commercialize technology across various sectors, including defense.” Krafton CEO Kim Chang-han took this a step further, saying he hopes the partnership results in “global defense technology company like Anduril,” the AI weapons company founded by Palmer Luckey. Because that's somebody you want to compare yourself to.
Larian Studios
Baldur’s Gate 3, Divinity
Late last year, Larian CEO Swen Vincke put his foot in his mouth by breathlessly confessing his love of genAI to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier](https://kotaku.com/larian-baldurs-gate-3-divinity-ai-swen-vincke-reaction-2000653934). What followed was an expletive-filled rant against everyone being mean to him, and doubling down on the use of AI in the development of their upcoming Divinity.
Earlier this year during a Reddit AMA, Vincke sort of backed down, saying that “we’ve decided to refrain from using genAI tools during concept art development,” but also said that they won’t stop using AI in other aspects. This didn’t stop many gaming outlets, including Nintendo Wire who pointed this caveat out, running the same misleading “Divinity Won’t Use AI” headlines.
Level-5
Fantasy Life i, Professor Layton, Inazuma Eleven
Level-5 might be the most open about their use of genAI, giving presentations and freely talking to the press about how they use AI to generate concept art and even story beats. In a survey submitted to the Japanese government (via Automaton), Level-5 showed multiple examples of where they used genAI in the creation of the latest Inazuma Eleven and Megaton Musashi W: Wired*. They specifically use Stable Diffusion for the creation of art, and ChatGPT to come up with story and gameplay ideas.
In December 2025, Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino addressed a programmer’s statement earlier in the year about an upcoming game being 80% programmed by AI. Hino denied this was the case, but did say “if they really were creating 80%–90% percent of the code with AI and successfully making games that way, it’d be incredibly impressive,” further stating “it’s also true that AI is enabling time savings that can’t be dismissed. It might shift us from a world where developing the AAA games everyone wants to play takes 5–10 years to one where we get to enjoy them every two years.”
Those comments Hino denied came from Hino himself, who in June 2025 said that “80-90% of codes are written by AI” which to him means “around 80~90% of games are made by AI.”
He closes the December interview with this doozy:
“A knife can be used for cooking or as a weapon; a computer can create games or enable cybercrime. AI might produce plagiarized content if misused, but if used properly, it has the power to enrich the creative world even further. If we let the impression take hold here that ‘using AI is evil,’ it could seriously hinder the advancement of modern digital technology. I hope creators and audiences alike can recognize AI as a tool that people use to make their works. Here’s to hoping that various technological innovations lead to even greater growth in the game industry!”
Lutris
Lutris Game Manager
Lutris is a legendary piece of software for Linux users, essentially acting as a Windows layer that allows video games intended for Windows to run smoothly on Linux. It’s largely a community-run project, but it was created and still largely maintained by Mathieu Comandon. As spotted by GamingonLinux, Comandon recently started using Claude AI to generate code for updates. When the issue was raised by concerned Lutris fans, he went into a full meltdown. He admitted to using AI to write code, defending its use in programming, and closed with this:
“Anyway, I was suspecting that this ‘issue’ might come up so I've removed the Claude co-authorship from the commits a few days ago. So good luck figuring out what's generated and what is not. Whether or not I use Claude is not going to change society, this requires changes at a deeper level, and we all know that nothing is going to improve with the current US administration.”
He since reinstated the Claude attribution, saying in a snarky comment that he’s only doing so because “it’s such a big fuss.” He continues using AI to generate code for Lutris.
Martian Lawyers Club
Gug
Speaking of doozies, Gug creator Martian Lawyers Club state on their Steam page that they use AI generated text and images in their game. They take it a step further, stating an in FAQ that “we use language models and image models that are trained on content from the internet that’s been extracted without consideration for its copyright or licensing.”
Again, trying to keep my personal opinions out of this, but these companies are making that very difficult. ‘Yeah, we used a plagiarism machine, deal with it’ is about as evil as it gets.
miHoYo
Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero
miHoYo are going big on genAI. They’ve created at least one in-house AI system to generate voice acting, called Anti-Entropy AI. The tech is being used in Zenless Zone Zero, though an altered version of the system is also being used to “enhance” facial animations in Honkai Star Rail. They’re also using the tech to create vocals in an otome game called Tears of Themis.
MiHoYo are also investing big in genAI. They’ve donated to Nvidia’s various AI projects. They’ve also invested in a start-up company called MiniMax, a company that will focus on creating large language models.
Neowiz
Lies of P
Neowiz’s co-CEO, Sean Kim, spoke to Game Informer in January 2025 expressing a desire to work with genAI on future titles. It’s the same 'we want to make games quicker and more efficiently' drivel we’ve heard a thousand times already, so I’ll link to the interview.
Neowiz also partnered with quantum security firm Norma to “explore” quantum applications in gaming. The partnership will “investigate quantum algorithms for game development, quantum AI to improve classical AI models, and quantum security solutions to protect gaming environments from future cyber threats.” Whatever any of that means.
Nexon
The First Descendant, MapleStory, Dave the Diver
Nexon CEO Junghun Lee stated in a Japanese interview (via Automaton) in November 2025 that “It’s important to assume every game company is now using AI.” He then completely chickened out when asked if Nexon were using AI, simply saying he believes in “human creativity,” though he does say AI will “raise the bar when it comes to game developers’ average level of output.”
Nihon Falcom
Ys, Trails, Xanadu
An unnamed representative for Nihon Falcom stated in a December 2025 shareholder meeting that the company is “using AI to brainstorm scenarios and do research. What used to take 2-3 hours can now be completed in 10 minutes. AI is also used to correct typos in the scenario.”
Nvidia
Overpriced GPUs
You’ve no doubt heard about Nvidia’s new “Yassification” filter, or DLSS 5, as its officially called. It’s the most egregious, disgusting use of generative AI in gaming yet, as its a third party filter that affects most, if not all, video games run through it.
Nvidia assures us that developers are working with them on how the AI filter should look, and that the feature is optional. Even if that were true, which it isn’t since video game artists for the games for which this tech was demonstrated refuted, that’s besides the point. A company that makes GPUs has decided that artistic vision is irrelevant to what they think constitutes good graphics and beautiful women, so they’re going to unilaterally change everything.
The backlash was severe and swift upon the tech’s debut. Once beloved institution Digital Foundry, who supported the tech and lavished it with praise, was bullied into issuing an apology. Nvidia CEO and failed fashion model Jensen Huang pushed against the backlash, going so far as to say that anyone with any criticism of the yassification filter was “completely wrong.”
Since then, Huang, alongside such luminary figures as Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison, have been named to a tech advisory board answering directly to US President Donald Trump, who himself is all-in on AI. The US government going so far as to push the Department of War to use AI in warfare, resulting in the bombing of an Iranian school for young girls. That’s how you go from an AI “yass, queen” filter to murdered children.
Oliver Twins
Dizzy, SkySaga
The Oliver Twins, who have spent the last two decades making licensed games like iCarly and Puss in Boots released Ghost Hunters in 2025 – a “game” that is entirely AI generated, on a platform called RichCast that specializes in generated games from scratch. It is utterly dire. Every frame of animation, every cutscene, every image from this “game” looks wildly different from the frame that came before it. The “gameplay” consists entirely of watching this amorphis blob of a character fire a ridiculous gun at ugly spiders and wobbly ghosts marching towards you before watching more horrific AI generated cutscenes.
The Oliver Twins have heavily invested in RichCast, co-founding the platform's parent company, Panivox, with Viewpoint Games co-founder Neil Campbell. GameIndustry.biz has an interview with the Oliver Twins about the founding of this genAI monstrosity, you should read that for all the horrifying details. If you can stomach it.
Pathea Games
My Time at Sandrock
In attempting to dismiss accusations of using AI-generated art, a response from Pathea on Reddit admitted that the studio uses AI tools to “assist” human illustrators. Marketing representative Xiaoyang Yang later reiterated, saying that “our artwork is primarily crafted by our talented team of skilled artists. While we use various tools to enhance certain details.”
After that, a lead artist calling themselves Zede again attempted to dismiss the claims, only confirming it in the process. “As far as I know,” he said on Reddit, “[the concept artist] did use AI to make some wrinkles and hair more pronounced.”
PlayStation
Concord, FairGame$, Marathon
In early 2025, The Verge (via IGN) reported that PlayStation were experimenting with using genAI to create entire characters. They found an internal video showcasing an AI-generated Aloy from the Horizon series. In the video, Sony Interactive Entertainment director of software engineering Sharwin Raghoebardajal has a conversation in real time with Aloy. Raghoebardajal then jumps into Horizon: Forbidden West, where he continues the conversation with Aloy as he’s playing the game.
In January 2026, PlayStation filed a patent for an AI “ghost” tool that can assist players if they get stuck in a game, taking control away from the player and letting the AI ghost play the game for them.
We’re about to reach the point where you can have an AI ghost play an AI-generated game for you.
Quillo Entertainment
Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale
There’s nothing special about Quillo Entertainment’s Apopia: Sugar Coated Tale. It’s the usual case of an indie developer using “preliminary” AI generated sound effects and music before “refining” them in the final version. It’s worth inclusion on this list for what it represents.
This isn’t a major corporation forcing AI down our throats. This is a small time indie “developer” who decided to use AI to make a game they otherwise wouldn’t have. As argued before in this post, with such a severe backlash to AI, you can’t trust a developer when they say they “only” used it for one or two aspects. Why should we? Was AI also used in generating art, or code? Was it truly removed or are they saying that to save face? The description doesn’t say the AI generated audio was removed, only that it was “refined.” And Valve have demonstrated time and time again they don’t take the require AI disclaimer seriously.
Is it fair to accuse this developer of using AI in other aspects of development? Well, if they didn’t use AI, we wouldn’t have to ask the question in the first place.
Rainy Night Creations
Spy Drops
Spy Drops, a Metal Gear style stealth game, used AI generated voice acting in its initial release. The developer has since claimed to have replaced it with real, human voice actors. They also claimed they did not use genAI in any other capacity.
Revolution Software
Broken Sword, Beyond a Steel Sky
In 2024, Revolution Software released a “remake” of Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars. The “remake” was actually the base game thrown through an AI upscaler. In a 2023 interview, co-founder Charles Cecil said that AI would “lay the foundation” for artists to add “their own touches,” and that using genAI would save time and money.
However, in an interview from late 2025, he walked back those claims, saying that the AI upscaling process for Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged was “enormously satisfactory” and that it was an “expensive mistake.” He said that while they will not use AI to create artwork going forward, they would continue to use it to “enhance” compressed voice recording files from previous games on upcoming “remakes.”
Roblox
Roblox
The creators of Jeffrey Epstein Simulator now want the largely child user base of the game to use multiple AI tools. The company is creating five different tools powered by AI. One creates 3D objects, one is a real-time voice translation tool to make the rampant pedophilia in the game even easier, and the other three tools are aimed at “speeding up” processes in programming.
Sandfall
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
The Indie Game Awards took two awards away from Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 because the company lied about their use of generative AI. The award show asked Sandfall when their game was first nominated if it used genAI in any capacity, as they do not allow games that use genAI to be nominated. Sandfall said no, but after winning the awards, they stated they did in fact use genAI to create artwork for the game.
Sandfall have largely remained quiet on the issue, only stating that the offending images have been patched out of the game.
Sega
Sonic the Hedgehog, Yakuza, Persona
A representative for Sega stated in a shareholder meeting late in 2025 that they will use AI as part of “efficiency improvements”. They also said that they won’t “fully” follow the trend of using it large-scale development, but that they will “pursue efficiency improvements, such as leveraging AI.” Whatever that means.
Shift Up
Stellar Blade, Project Spirits
In May 2023, Shift Up recruited a former engineer of OpenAI, where he helped create ChatGPT. At the time, they didn’t specify what his role would be, other than that they wanted to “improve” how they created characters.
In January 2026, Shift Up CEO Hyung-tae Kim spoke at South Korea's 2026 Economic Growth Strategy meeting, where he claimed that AI is “an essential tool for going up against large competitors like China on a global level.” He went on to say that “the widespread use of AI will not result in people losing their jobs,” and in the very next sentence that AI could “perform the work of 100 people.”
Superboo Studios
Fallen
Brooke Burgess, creator of the upcoming action RPG Fallen recently had to defend the debut trailer for his game, as it featured heavy use of AI generated art. In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, he said the trailer was actually not a trailer, but a developer “tone pitch,” designed to attract investors.
"I'm not going to sell my soul and be like, 'Yeah, I'll do it by myself, let me prompt this whole game into existence,’” he said of using AI. “No, I want to work with really talented people and make something cool. But if integrating it in a way that doesn't affect creativity, but helps to save a little bit of money and gets the game out there to people, and gives us a chance to make something cool and memorable, and then make something else after that — it's something I have to factor in.”
He closed the interview by apparently sighing and saying “I just want to make the damn game.” Presumably he started crying and ran to his room, slamming the door shut after that.
Square Enix
Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Nier, Life is Strange
Square Enix stated in its Q4 2025 financial report that it wants to have AI handle as much as 70% of QA and debugging tasks in its games by 2027.
This comes despite a statement by CEO Takashi Kiryu in June 2024 in which he said the company would back down off its previously “aggressive” AI goals, and would instead use AI in “non-creative roles” and that AI tools “are used internally only after being properly examined.” Whatever that means.
Supertrick Games
Let it Die: Inferno, Deathverse
Supertrick’s Let it Die: Inferno uses extensive AI generated images, voices, and music. The company gave out a list of excuses after a negative reaction. They said they used AI voices to create “mysterious life form.” They said the AI art was simply “to generate rough base images,” and that the for the music, AI was… used to generate “stems” and that “Once all stems were exported, few were manually edited, but most were rebuilt from scratch.” Whatever that means.
Take-Two
Grand Theft Auto, 2K Sports, Bioshock, Civilization
When they’re not union busting, Take-Two are telling the world that genAI will actually increase employment. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz in early 2025, CEO Strauss Zelnick said that artificial intelligence is “magic,” and that “the history of digital technology is that technology increases employment, increases productivity, increases GDP and I think that's what's going to happen with AI.”
When asked about what guardrails the company had in place, you can see him squirm in his answer.
“But in terms of the guardrails, if you mean, you know, not infringing on other people's intellectual property by, you know, poaching their LLMs, yeah, we're not going to do that. Moreover, if we did, we couldn't protect that, we wouldn't be able to protect our own IP. So of course, we're mindful of what technology we use to make sure that it respects others' intellectual property and allows us to protect our own. Apart from that, I really can't think of any new guardrails that need to be implemented.”
Tencent
PUBG, Subnautica, Delta Force
Tencent are developing multiple genAI “tools” to create whole video games. One is GiiNEX, an AI-powered game engine that create entire video games from assets, programming, script scenarios, and music. They’ve also created Ace, an AI-powered anti-cheat tool for online games.
They’re also working on VISVISE, an “end-to-end AI game creation suit that will dramatically cut down game art design time from days or even months, down to minutes.” They claim the technology can create not only art, but also animate characters and generate complex skeletal systems for 3D models.
Ubisoft
Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Rainbow Six
In 2025, Ubsioft used generative AI to “create” an entire video game. The resulting monstrosity was dubbed “Teammates.” The game wasn’t released to the public, though it was shown off behind closed doors attended by multiple gaming outlets. But don’t worry, no one using genAI is trying to replace humans!
A year earlier, Ubisoft showed off a demonstration of genAI being used to allow players to have conversations with characters in game, much like PlayStation’s tech. They’re calling the tech Neo NPC, because they can’t help themselves.
Days after this blog was originally published, Ubisoft announced a massive reshuffle in which several games were canceled, studios were shuttered, and hundreds laid off. In the announcement, Ubisoft specifically said they were doubling down on “player facing Generative AI.” Days after this announcement, Ubisoft stated they were entering negations with French unions to lay off a further 200 workers. But I thought AI wasn’t taking peoples jobs…?
Unity
Unity Game Engine
It comes as little surprise that Unity, a company with a recent history of stepping on every rake it can find, throwing down their own when there are none in sight, would embrace generative AI.
In February, Unity announced a new feature to their Unity Game Engine that would allow “developers” to create whole worlds and gameplay mechanics with only a text prompt. No coding or art needed. Tell it what you want, and it’ll use what it plagiarized to cobble a Frankenstein’s monster of a game for you.
The announcement came with the usual fluff nonsense. Talk of “friction from the creative process as possible,” and “opening the door to tens of millions of budding game developers.” Why spend time learning when you can simply have a robot do everything for you? This feature is in beta right now, and is limited to “casual games” according to Unity. Good luck figuring out what that means in this context. No doubt they’ll continue pursuing the technology to make bigger and more elaborate games, quality and plagiarism concerns be damned.
Given the state of gaming storefronts before the advent of AI, we are in for a catastrophic tsunami of garbage.
Valve
Steam, Half-Life, Deadlock
In an interview with YouTube channel MinMax, Valve writer Eric Wolpaw stated that “a small group of people at Valve” have started testing genAI tools. He further added:
“It’s the one place where I feel like AI is worth investigating, game writing. And the thing that we’ve found is that, and this is just early days…It’s not good at being especially creative. It’s not good at being funny. But it’s kind of interesting in an imagined Grand Theft Auto where you’re going around creating a lot of physical chaos. There’s a certain amount of social chaos where you have the AI play the straight man as much as it can, and it’s just reacting to whatever insanity [happens]. It’s one thing it’s very good at, just going along with whatever insane thing you say and kind of adjusting to the flow of that. I am very interested in [AI] in this very specific case. It will allow you to do something that is impossible, no matter how many humans you throw at it.”
Wolpaw is an award-winning, highly-regarded writer in the industry. He’s written for Psychonauts and its sequel, Half-Life 2, and Portal. That he would so strongly come out in favor of AI—even if couching his excitement by saying its not ready yet, or that its funny to see the results—is worrying. If someone of his stature and regard falls for the AI swan song, what hope does the rest of the industry have?
Warhorse
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Warhorse CEO Daniel Vávra is infamous online for backing Gamergate and then being surprised when the leopards ate his face.
He was back at it again in December 2025, coming to the defense of Larian CEO Swen Vincke when he went on his unhinged rampage about how great AI is. Vávra stated on Twitter (because of course) that everyone in the games industry is using genAI, saying that “This AI hysteria is the same as when people were smashing steam engines in the 19th century.” He then contradicts himself, saying that he somehow doesn’t know if Kingdom Come: Deliverance used AI, only to say in the same sentence “I used Topaz Labs to upscale some of the AI elements from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 and some of the old low-res textures.”
Update 4/2/26: Max Hejtmánek, the English script editor and voice over director who worked at Warhorse on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, has been laid off. Hejtmánek took to Reddit, saying that he was told his services would no longer be required because Warhorse would “save finances” “in favor of using AI for all translations going forward,” he said.
Kotaku contacted Warhorse for a response, and they simply stated “Out of respect for the privacy and dignity of both current and former colleagues, we will not discuss individual situations publicly.” Seems an odd thing to say when they could have easily denied the allegation without saying anything about Hejtmánek’s position, but they declined to do so.
Xbox
Halo, Gears of War, Forza
Microsoft have invested heavily in AI, giving the tech to Israel to continue their genocide against Palestine.
When it comes to Xbox, it’s no different. Like Ubisoft, Xbox are working on an AI engine that can create whole video games from AI-generated assets. The engine is called Muse, and is being co-developed by Hellblade studio Ninja Theory. The model was trained on hours of footage taken from Bleeding Edge, “resulting in the model being trained on a billion image action pairs in total.”
“This allows the model to create consistent and diverse gameplay rendered by AI,” corporate VP of Gaming AI Fatima Kardar said. They then go on to wrap this as a positive thing, something to be used to restore classic games that would otherwise be lost… which would only be lost if companies like Xbox let them be lost, but whatever.
Update 4/2/26: In February 2026, Asha Sharma was appointed the new CEO of Xbox after the shocking “resignation” of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond. Her previous role was as President of Microsoft’s CoreAI division, showing just how much Microsoft is betting on AI in Xbox. Worse, past comments were dug up by Sharma in which she talked about how worried she was about declining birthrates, gave false numbers about infertility rates, and then talked about how AI would somehow raise those fertility rates and save humanity. You can't make this stuff up.
XD International
Heartopia
Heartopia, which is apparently a huge hit on Steam when it launched in January 2026, contains AI generated art and AI translation. The developer stated that AI is used in a specific puzzle to “reinterpret and redraw in-game snapshot images” used in the puzzle. They also use machine translation to translate in-game chat to the player’s default language.
They went a step further, stating that they will use AI in the future which they will disclose. They added, however: “Marketing materials produced outside the game, including those created in collaboration with third-party suppliers, are not covered by the scope of this disclosure.”
Zun
Touhou Project
Touhou Project creator Jun'ya Ōta, who professionally goes by “Zun,” said in an October 2025 stream that the human aspect of development is important. He said that while AI tech can easily make music, for example, “that’s not the point of music. What actually matters is that there are living human beings behind it all.” He went on to criticize those that use genAI, saying it’s all about business and that many have been “poisoned by capitalism.”
Touhou Kinjoukyou: Fossilized Wonders released in August 2025 and used AI generated art and textures.
Mixed Signals
There are some studios and developers giving mixed signals about their use or interest in AI. I’m not sure how to categorize them, as they haven’t definitively stated anything one way or another, but they’re worth highlighting regardless.
Grasshopper Manufacture
Romeo is a Dead Man, No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw
Studio lead Suda51 stated that their upcoming game, Romeo is a Dead Man “contains no AI-generated stuff whatsoever”. However, Suda51’s previous game, Hotel Barcelona did use AI generated art.
Hotel Barcelona isn’t a Grasshopper Manufacture game, despite Suda51 working on it. So this could be a case of Suda willing to experiment with it, but his company rejecting it? It’s hard to say.
Hazelight
Split Fiction, It Takes Two, A Way Out
Speaking to Chris Dring in January 2026, Hazelight founder and CEO Josef Fares had a lot to say about AI, yet said nothing at all.
“We have been working with AI for a long time in game development. The problem is the generative AI. If [an AI tool] is helpful to get your vision out there, I don’t see why we shouldn’t look into it. But… it’s the generative AI that people are a bit like…
“You get someone generating a game concept and saying, ‘oh look what might happen in five years?’ But who knows? In five years, maybe it’s going to be like Midjourney… not much better. At the end of the day, you still need someone that has a vision or idea of what game it is. I don’t see AI taking over. But it’s really hard to answer. Who knows what happens in the future?”
Unfortunately, Dring didn’t press Fares on whether Hazelight uses genAI in their games, or if its something they’re exploring. Fares has mixed thoughts on the technology, and doesn’t give a clear cut answer one way or another. To me, it sounds like he’s not big on it, but is willing to leave the door open.
Kojima Productions
Death Stranding, OD
Hideo Kojima stated in an interview with CNN that while he doesn’t think genAI should be used to create artwork or voice acting, he is “more interested” in using AI to control enemies and gameplay systems than he is in using it to create “art.”
Notice his choice of words. He didn’t say he was against using AI to create “art,” just that he’s “more interested” in using it to develop gameplay systems.
Observations
There are some video game companies that were created with AI first and foremost. I didn’t bother including these (like Game Gears that used 10 different AI models to create literally every aspect of their “games”) because nobody cares about these losers. They’re a dime a dozen and are not worth anybody’s time.
I also didn’t mention any of the developers owned by these companies. If a major publisher like PlayStation, Xbox, or Ubisoft wants to use AI, then the studios they own likely don’t have much say. That’s something we’re already seeing at EA. In that previously linked article, QA testers at Respawn expressed frustration at the AI tools execs at EA are forcing on them.
One of the biggest takeaways from this list is how East Asian studios are so heavily in favor of AI. Every major Chinese and Korean studio have not only used genAI, but go out of their way to praise it. Most Japanese studios are following suit, though there are a couple of holdouts, most notably Nintendo. Most western AAA studios are using genAI, of course, but many AA and indie studios have come out against it. There are a lot of reasons for this, and we’re not going to get into that in great detail here. Worse working conditions, worse pay, more crunch, an audience already used to low quality mobile games, lax attitudes towards copyright, and politics are some of these factors.
Another thing that stood out to me are the number of indie developers who use genAI. This isn’t another case of lamenting over AAA studios doing something bad, while praising indies for doing the right thing. As many indies are using AI as major studios. In fact, some indies are more blatant and uncompromising than AAA studios, like Martian Lawyer Club and Embark.
Some of these developers claimed to “only” use genAI to generate concept art or voice acting. We have to take them at their word on this. There’s a classic saying in writing that a plagiarist never only plagiarizes once. If a studio felt comfortable using AI to create concept art, why wouldn’t they also be okay using it to create art to put in the game? If they were “confined by a budget” enough to use AI to generate voice acting, why wouldn’t they also use it to create music and save even more money? I can’t say for sure that these studios did use AI more than they claim to, but I can’t discount it, either.
That’s why I don’t differentiate between developers who have actively used it, and those who have expressed interest in using it. The backlash against genAI is growing, so it’s more and more likely that studios are going to use it without telling people. Or at least try to minimize it. We saw this with Square Enix, who a few years ago breathlessly expressed their love for genAI, only to walk that back last year after the negative response. That question over whether this or that asset was generated by AI will always be there with these studios.
Final Thoughts
One thing is clear: AI brain rot doesn’t care how big you are, how successful or respected you’ve been in the past. It doesn’t care if you’re a major player desperately trying to make numbers go up or a one person dev following their dreams. It doesn’t care if you’re trying to push a game out quickly and cheaply to make a quick buck or if you want to make a great game. It’s a cancer that rots from the core, destroying everything in its path with the allure of ease, convenience, and saving money.
There are far too many game developers who are willing to use this tech who don’t care about the consequences. They don’t care that genAI is one giant plagiarism machine. They don’t care about the immense resources the AI-data centers require, wrecking the environment and raising energy prices across the world. They don’t care that the technology was explicitly designed to replace human workers. They see profit, and that’s all that matters to them.
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