Blessing Adioye Jr.

The Indie Game Awards took place on December 18th, and as many could assume, Clear Obscure Expedition 33 took home the awards for Game of the Year and Debut Game.

However, things have changed, and the Indie Game Awards are making a big decision to strip Claire Obscure and the developer Sandfall Interactive of their awards over the use of Gen AI in the game.

In an announcement made on Saturday afternoon, 6.1 Indie, the creators of the show, said that its removal comes after the discovery, after voting was done, and the show was recorded.

Quote,

The Indie Game Awards have a hard stance on the use of Gen AI throughout the nomination process and during the ceremony itself.

The statement reads, quote, When it was submitted for consideration, representatives of Sandfall Interactive agreed that no generative AI was used in the development of Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

In light of Sandfall Interactive confirming the use of Gen AI on the day of the Indie Game Awards 2025 premiere, this does disqualify Claire Obscure Expedition 33 from its nomination, end quote.

6.1 Indie ended by thanking the community for being patient and providing feedback on the situation.

Quote, the organizational team behind the ceremony is a small crew with big ambitions, and the Indie Game Awards can only grow with your help and support, they said.

We already can't wait for the 2026 ceremony.

With Claire Obscure's disqualification, the awards will now go to the runner-ups.

That means the award for debut game goes to Sorry We're Closed, while game of the year now goes to Blueprints.

I want to add in a little bit more context from Polygon about what's going on with Claire Obscure.

So Claire Obscure Expedition 33 launched with what some suspected to be AI-generated textures that, as it clarified to El Pais, were then replaced with custom assets in a Swift patch five days after release.

Tim, I think my first response to this is to say, let's fucking go.

Blueprints, we're up.

Let's fucking go.

Blueprints, baby.

Kevin knows.

Thank you for the script.