Despite winning a host of awards at The Game Awards and earning near-universal praise, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been stripped of its awards from the Indie Game Awards.

The indie darling RPG did initially win Game of the Year and best Debut Game at the Indie Game Awards – however the event’s strict policy against generative AI use and a mix-up in its submission process led to showrunners deciding to strip awards from the game.

A new statement from the Indie Game Awards states when the game was submitted, “a representative of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no gen AI was used in the development” for the game. The team admitted on the day of the awards show that gen AI was indeed used in production, though it was later removed with final assets made by human artists.

“While the assets in question were patched out and it is a wonderful game, it does go against the regulations we have in place,” the statement reads. “As a result, the IGAs nomination committee has agreed to officially retract both the Debut Game and Game of the Year awards.”

This change up means Game of the Year and best Debut Game have been handed to the runner-ups, indie games Blue Prince and Sorry We’re Closed, respectively.

The Indie Game Awards removing awards from a game that used gen AI because it used the tech, period, stirs up the ongoing debate around the technology.

Larian Studios, another darling studio, came under fire recently for a botched article that exaggerated the studio’s gen AI use. Regardless, their CEO firmly stated they do use gen AI, but to explore new ideas that are then fleshed out by human artists.

Other developers have suggested to assume “all game companies” are using genAI, and others canceled games over genAI use. Some games that openly disclosed genAI use still ended up being insanely popular, like Arc Raiders.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is now available across PC (via Steam and the Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Xbox Game Pass. Get our review!