Tonda Ros, developer of indie game Blue Prince, has issued a public statement denying any use of AI in the game’s creation.
“There is no AI used in Blue Prince,” Ros stated. He emphasized the game was “built and crafted with full human instinct” by himself and his team.
The denial follows an article published by The Escapist that accused Blue Prince of using generative AI assets. Multiple sources indicate the article provided no concrete evidence to support the claim.
The timing matters. Blue Prince recently won Game of the Year at the Six One Indie Awards after another nominated title, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, was disqualified from the competition. That disqualification centered on AI usage disclosure issues.
The Escapist’s accusation appears to have been published in response to this awards outcome. The publication has since retracted its accusation and issued an apology, but the reason for why it accused Blue Prince of using AI in the first place is still something of a mystery.
Blue Prince has been in development for nearly a decade according to multiple sources. This timeline predates the recent boom in generative AI tools like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which only became widely available in 2022.
The controversy shows how confused things have gotten around what “AI” means in gaming. Traditional game AI has existed for decades. It powers NPC behavior, enemy pathfinding, and difficulty scaling. Generative AI is different. It creates art, textures, dialogue, or other content using machine learning models trained on existing works.
Digital storefronts and awards programs have recently tightened rules around AI disclosure as the technology has had time to integrate into development cycles. Steam now requires developers to indicate if they used generative AI for certain asset types. Multiple game festivals have added similar requirements or outright bans.
For indie developers, even unproven allegations can damage reputation and sales. Blue Prince has a publisher to defend it, but not all games are so lucky. That makes rapid public clarifications necessary when accusations surface.
When scrutiny becomes standard
The Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 situation has intensified scrutiny across the indie scene. After that game’s disqualification, accusations against other titles have multiplied. Some appear to be based on visual style preferences rather than concrete evidence.
Ros’s statement represents a clear attempt to draw a line. Whether it settles the matter depends partly on how audiences interpret “no AI used.” Some will read it as no generative AI. Others may question whether it extends to coding assistants or other development tools.
