2025 has been a rather heated year for genAI and its ever-increasing use in videogames. Most recently, the year's awards darling Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was disqualified from the Indie Game Awards for making use of generative AI during development and Larian's admission of using genAI "to explore ideas" at the studio has caused ripples of discourse throughout social media.
Among all of this, it seems like Blue Prince—which won the Indie Game Award's Game of the Year and also Best Design in our PC Gamer 2025 Game of the Year Awards—ended up caught in the crossfire. That's thanks to a since-edited article from The Escapist which suggested that generative AI was used in the game and was still present in the final product.
For people that need confirmation: There is no AI used in Blue Prince. The game was built and crafted with full human instinct by Tonda Ros @dogubomb & his team. It is the result of eight years of development, fuelled by imagination and creativity, and we are extremely proud of… pic.twitter.com/zdbqp6xnKyDecember 21, 2025
The now-retracted statement had the game's publisher Raw Fury coming out to defend developer Dogubomb by saying one thing loud and clear: it is 100% human-made. "For people that need confirmation: There is no AI used in Blue Prince," an X post from the Raw Fury account read.
"The game was built and crafted with full human instinct by Tonda Ros and his team. It is the result of eight years of development, fuelled by imagination and creativity, and we are extremely proud of what Tonda has achieved."
It does feel slightly maddening to live in a world where we now need confirmation of these types of things, but I can only assume that the Dogubomb team is glad to see its publisher stepping up on its behalf. It hasn't said anything itself on social media, but did repost Raw Fury's statement.
As we barrel into 2026 I'm sure that generative AI and its use in games is only going to become a hotter topic—its use an increasing deal-breaker for some while others begin to accept the way it's seeping into traditionally human corners of the industry.
