So uh... i know from my last journal i've been too harsh on Sandfall Interactive with AI placeholder pandered in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but there's good news, there's good news!

There's a brand new Q&A from a lesser youtube influencer about E33, and there's a timestamp at 11:44 and they asked if there's genAI in the game, and i know a lot of people on social media attacking Sandfall for crossing the line using AI assets from UE store and calling out on them for harming the environment, hypocritical articles, disrespecting their concept artists, and booting them out on an Indie Game Awards after pointing out the placeholder at launch of the game before quietly patching out thinking that it's just another slop of a game. But..... the more i look at Sandfall's (especially Guillaume Broche) answer, the more i dug deep, i realized... oh my god... Larian and Bethesda wished they were Anti-AI when Sandfall came to their senses and clarify everything from start to finish they're legitimately anti-ai and realized we got the info wrong n' this was left in by accident and they knew how distatsteful AI was for them to just rush out and they took the time to fix it was was left behind.

Well, it's close enough and quite understandable for them to come out.

Also i will say this if they're truly Anti-AI, possibly we should've been too harsh on them too much, but still, they should've came out sooner til' this was spred before causing them to get disqualified at IGA and it doesn't cut it since the placeholder was genAI found from UE store (or somewhere, i dunno.), but at least they got the concept artist to do the job for them and at least they came to clarify how they hated using AI during development, so i'll let this one slide for now, AS LONG they won't use it again in the future titles and speaking of which...

Come to think of this, they're not doubling down on genAI (as i said before) and people at Sandfall are truly passionate devs who care about their game. So.. they're not Larian or Bethesda, so... they are really good people who want to escape from a hellish AAA empire and make their own projects and show them how it's done and it worked, so they're really are independent (if counting hundreds of people who worked on E33). So after all this minor misinformation and fallout, i can see why this was a mistake and we've overreacted a bit and we see they're not bad people and they're ain't technically hypocritical (if the articles are confusing to believe), so i can believe them and i may owe them an apology since they're Anti-AI for now and i think i may get my hands on E33 sometime in the future, don't expect much, lol.

And while there's still no official statement yet, but i guess this Q&A will do if not better, but if the final piece should've stayed at launch, we wouldn't be dealing with this fiasco since using genAI asset was a bad taste for them. Still sucks they got disqualified at IGA for this, whoops. :v

If anything like if this is gonna change your mind then... yeah, you can play Expedition 33 since there's no genAI assets anywhere after patch so... that was a relief at first, and if you're still burnt from all the drama from Sandfall and all the chaos mentioned before this was spred, then you don't have to play it, there are plenty of JRPGs that will excite you like Xenoblade Chronicles, Final Fantasy VI/VII, Chrono Trigger, Tales of Symphonia, Persona 4/5, The Last Story or NieR:Automata™, even indies like Sea of Stars, Ikenfell, Deltarune, In Stars and Time, and especially the upcoming Threads of Time, these games are worth playing too made by creative/passionate game devs who love working on their game. Despite everything we kinda had it rough and we're still reeling from it.

So, Sandfall, you've may have gotten a rough time, but i respect you, just keep doing creative works without using genAI in future titles, gonna keep my eyes on you from here on out.

Okay, i'm done talking about E33 for now, i'm tired. XD

I'm off the hook for now, take care, support human artists and Merry Christmas!
Hope 2026 won't be shittier than 2020 n' 2025.