Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was revoked from the Indie Game Awards 2025 due to excessive AI usage.

 

Although Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept the awards at The Game Awards 2025, the story took a completely different turn at the Indie Game Awards. Initially winning Game of the Year and Best Launch Game, the game was subsequently disqualified.

The Indie Game Awards committee stated that Sandfall Interactive, the developer of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, initially informed them that the game did not use generative AI graphics. However, their investigation revealed that the game did use gen-AI graphics at launch. While Sandfall subsequently corrected these errors, the competition's requirements forced the committee to revoke the awards.

Sandfall's development team had previously stated in interviews at the time of the game's launch that some AI was used, particularly in graphics, but that a patch addressing these issues was released within days of launch.

The Indie Game Awards committee announced that the two disqualified awards would be given to the games with the next highest scores. Best Launch Game went to Sorry We're Closed, and Game of the Year went to Blue Prince.