Within the span of every week, Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was named Game of the Year by each The Game Awards and The Indie Game Awards. However simply two days after its newest win, The Indie Game Awards stripped Expedition 33 of its two wins over the developer’s use of AI.
“The Indie Game Awards have a tough stance on the usage of gen AI all through the nomination course of and throughout the ceremony itself,” reads an announcement on The Indie Game Awards’ official site (through Insider Gaming). “When it was submitted for consideration, representatives of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used within the improvement of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. In gentle of Sandfall Interactive confirming the usage of gen AI on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from its nomination.”
Following that call, The Indie Game Awards named Blue Prince as its new Game of the Year. Sorry We’re Closed was given the award for Debut Game, which Expedition 33 beforehand claimed.
Throughout a function run on El Pais in July 2025, Expedition 33 producer François Meurisse stated, “We use some AI, however not a lot. The key’s that we have been very clear about what we needed to do.” Following the discharge of that article, Sandfall Interactive launched the next assertion:
“The studio states that it was involved with El Pais on April 25–three months previous to this publication. Throughout these exchanges, Sandfall Interactive indicated that it had used a restricted variety of pre-existing property, notably 3D property sourced from the Unreal Engine Market. None of those property have been created utilizing synthetic intelligence.”
Moreover, Sandfall states that the one AI-created property within the recreation have been positioned as “non permanent placeholder textures” that have been missed throughout Expedition 33’s QA course of. As soon as the property have been recognized, they have been “eliminated inside 5 days” and changed by the supposed textures.
Up to now, the controversy does not appear to have dimmed Expedition 33’s recognition. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, congratulated Sandfall for its success at The Game Awards. These awards gave Expedition 33 a large increase on Steam and consoles. That improve could have additionally been fueled partly by a brand new DLC for Expedition 33 that dropped instantly after The Game Awards.