Is it Divine, or is it AI?
Plus what game won two Indie Game Awards, only to have them taken away?
The CEO of Larian gave his first interview since their latest game, Divinity, was announced at The Game Awards. However, some of his comments created internet backlash towards the game. Also, the Indie Game Awards announced their winners last week, but rescinded two awards. Find out all the details and all the latest news. Let’s go!
Divinity’s AI explosion
In his first interview since The Game Awards, Larian CEO Swen Vincke discussed work on their new game Divinity. He compared it to their last game, Baldur’s Gate 3, promising Divinity would be “next level.” He also mentioned how the company uses AI in their workflow.
As one might expect, the AI comments set the internet ablaze. From the article:
Under Vincke, Larian has been pushing hard on generative AI, although the CEO says the technology hasn’t led to big gains in efficiency. He says there won’t be any AI-generated content in Divinity — “everything is human actors; we’re writing everything ourselves” — but the creators often use AI tools to explore ideas, flesh out PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art and write placeholder text.
The use of generative AI has led to some pushback at Larian, “but I think at this point everyone at the company is more or less OK with the way we’re using it,” Vincke said.
Vincke’s comments on AI caused a ton of backlash across the internet and social media. Amidst the firestorm, Vincke took to Twitter to explain his comments:
I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.
We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.
Game Developer has a breakdown of all the controversy surrounding the event. Vincke says he plans to do a Reddit AMA to address the issue, but no date is set. Meanwhile, the co-founder of the studio behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance responded to the situation, saying “it’s time to face reality, AI is here to stay.”
We recently conducted our own poll of The Games Letter readers, asking should digital storefronts require AI disclosure? Over 85% of you said yes, storefronts like Steam should disclose if a game uses AI.
Finally, one interesting point from Jason Schreier, who wrote the article about Larian:
As the backlash to generative AI in video games continues to pick up steam heading into 2026, it'll be fascinating to see what is considered "made with generative AI." Can a dev team say they're not using AI if they're writing design docs with Copilot or using chatGPT to make schedules and budgets?
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) 2025-12-21T16:15:53.571Z
The Indie Game Awards winners
The Indie Game Awards announced their 2025 winners, but later rescinded two of the awards won by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
In a video on Bluesky, Mike Towndrow of the IGA nomination committee says:
We have a hard stance against gen AI in videogames, it's something we talk about throughout the year when discussing any potential nominees. On the day of the premiere, Sandfall Interactive did, in fact, confirm that gen AI was used in the making of Expedition 33…That clearly goes against the regulations we have in place, and disqualifies it from nomination.
The IGAs Nomination Committee is officially retracting Debut Game and Game of the Year, awarding both categories to new recipients. Additionally, we are retracting one of the Indie Vanguard recipients. Full details can be found in our FAQ under Game Eligibility: www.indiegameawards.gg/faq
— The Indie Game Awards (@indiegameawards.gg) 2025-12-20T18:45:10.232Z
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 initially won best Debut Game and Game of the Year. Towndrow points out in his video that the next highest scoring game on their list would now be the winners, with Sorry We’re Closed now taking home Best Debut and Blue Prince winning their Game of the Year. You can see the full list of winners below.
- Achievement in Accessibility: PEAK
- African Indie Game Award: Stick It To The Stickman
- ANZ Indie Game Award: The Drifter
- Bite-Sized Game: Time Flies
- Black Voices in Gaming Award: Altheia: The Wrath of Aferi
- Community Management: PEAK
- Debut Game: Sorry We're Closed
- Emotional Impact: and Roger
- Gameplay Design: BALL x PIT
- Industry Impact: Game Devs of Color
- Innovation: Blue Prince
- Latin American Indie Game Award: Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo
- The Mohammad Fahmi Storyteller Award: Maddy Thorson
- Music: Rift of the NecroDancer
- Narrative: Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector
- Solo Development: Tall Trails
- Southeast Asian Indie Game Award: Artis Impact
- Visual Design: 30 Birds
- Women-Led Indie Game Award: Urban Myth Dissolution Center
- Game of the Year: Blue Prince
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Side Quests (more stories worth reading)
🎅🏻 We are taking off next Monday to celebrate with family. Happy Holidays to all!
📈 Analysis suggests the global games market for 2025 is expected to hit $197 billion, a 7.5% increase.
📉 Meanwhile, hardware and physical software sales in the U.S. had their worst November since 1995.
📅 Riot Games is reportedly working on a massive overhaul to League of Legends that should be out in 2027.
😓 Game developer Naughty Dog is reportedly forcing employees to work mandatory overtime on their upcoming game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet.
😯 The 2025 Game Awards were reportedly watched by over 171 million people.
🐴 Horses sold over 18,000 copies, despite being removed from the Steam and Epic game stores.
🎮 Cheaper versions of the Switch 2 cartridges may soon be available to developers, providing a less expensive alternative to Game-Key Cards.
🇷🇺 After its ban sparked protests in Russia, Roblox is planning to make changes to have its ban revoked.
🏆 The New York Game Awards announced their 2026 nominees, with Ghost of Yōtei leading the nominations.
🤝 Sony reached a “confidential settlement” with Tencent over their Horizon clone. More about this story.
🏃🏿♂️ Bungie confirms their latest game Marathon will release in March of 2026 and cost $40.
⚽ FIFA and Netflix are partnering for a new football game, being created by a studio that has not shipped any games.
☢️ According to Bethesda head Todd Howard, Fallout 5 will exist in a world where “the story events of the show happened or are happening.”
🦸🏾♀️ Dispatch is coming to Switch on Jan. 28.
🚗 Honda announced that their upcoming new car, the Afeela 1, will support PlayStation Remote Play.
👩🏽💻 GamesIndustry.biz looks at how the games industry has changed for women a decade after Gamergate.
☢️ Fallout is coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in a crossover event.
🕹️ The Quickshot II, one of the most popular controllers of all time, is making a comeback. Here’s hoping the new version lasts longer than a week.
👵🏻 A 92-year-old Japanese woman won a Tekken 8 tournament designed for senior citizens.
📈 Round numbers: Where Winds Meet was played by 15 million individuals, Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Series sold six million copies and Hogwarts Legacy sold over 40 million.
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