While AI adoption is accelerating among major game companies, 'AI-free' is becoming a new selling point in the indie game world.



The popularity of generative AI has also spread to the gaming industry, with several major game companies incorporating AI into their development. In response, some indie game studios are making bold claims about their games being 'AI-free,' highlighting the fact that they are developing games without the use of AI.

Indie game developers have a new sales pitch: being 'AI free' | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/827650/indie-developers-gen-ai-nexon-arc-raiders

'Every moment flapped and messy because we are, also': Indie developer rallies against big studios' increasingly flippant remarks about generative AI | PC Gamer
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rhythm/every-moment-flawed-and-messy-because-we-are-also-indie-developer-rallies-against-big-studios-increasingly-flippant-remarks-about-generative-ai/

Major game companies are increasingly incorporating AI into their development. For example, Ubisoft, the company behind Assassin's Creed and the Tom Clancy series, has just announced an experimental project called 'Teammates,' which uses generative AI to make non-player characters behave like real allies.




Electronic Arts (EA), known for sports games such as 'EA SPORTS FC' and the 'Battlefield' series, has partnered with Stability AI, the developer of image generation AI and Stable Diffusion, to assist artists, designers, and developers with AI.




ARC Raiders , which has been hugely popular since its release on October 30, 2025, also uses AI-generated synthetic voices trained on voice actors. It has also been noted that ARC Raiders uses machine learning to improve the behavior and animation of its enemies (robots).

It has also been revealed that over 7,800 titles, or about 7% of games sold on Steam, a PC game sales platform, use generative AI. Furthermore, when narrowing down the scope to titles released on Steam in 2025, it appears that about 20% were developed using generative AI.

7,818 games on Steam publicly announce the use of generative AI, accounting for 7% of the total, and at least 20% of titles released in 2025 will use generative AI - GIGAZINE



In response to this, indie game studio Polygon Treehouse is competing with major game studios that are accelerating the use of AI by declaring that they are 'developing without using any AI.'

Junhoon Lee, CEO of major game company Nexon, said , 'All game companies are using AI now, and this is a natural result.' However, Alex Canaris-Sotiriou, co-founder of Polygon Treehouse, flatly denied Lee's statement, saying, 'The statement that all companies are using AI is not true.'

D-Cell Games, the developer of the indie game Unbeatable, also posted a statement directly contradicting Lee's statement, saying, 'Everything in Unbeatable was created by human hands, without any generative assistance. Every frame drawn, every word written, every model sculpted, every chord typed, every song sung, every guitar played, and every moment is flawed and messy because it was generated by us, humans.'

Maybe we could use another splash screen.

[image or embed]

— WWW.UNBEATABLEGAMEWISHLIST.NOW ( @dcellgames.com ) November 12, 2025 15:47



In addition, D-Cell Games producer Jeffrey Chao told The Verge, 'Addressing all of the ethical, moral, and legal concerns about using generative AI would be a huge waste of effort. It's possible to produce results that meet quality standards without AI assistance,' he said, arguing that AI is not essential for game development.

Additionally, The Verge points out that an increasing number of indie games are using the 'AI Free' logo as a marketing strategy.

Related Posts:

in AI,   Game, Posted by logu_ii