Australian developer House House has responded to rumors that it used generative AI tools during the development of Big Walk. This follows a statement from Independent Game Festival Awards jury members clarifying their hard-line stance against games that used the technology during development. In its message, the studio confirms that it used LLM models during the final stages of the game’s development.

Big Walk released in August for PC, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2. The game is a cooperative multiplayer game where groups of up to twelve players traverse an island while solving puzzles. The game has been a massive success, selling over two million copies since launch and ranking among the highest rated releases of 2026.

IGF Awards Juror’s Statement

Yesterday, a group of jurors for the IGF Awards, which is held during the Games Developer Conference, released a statement establishing a hard-line stance against titles that use generative AI tools in any capacity. The post claims that its signed jurors (which include Her Story developer Sam Barlow and Celeste composer Lena Raine) will not vote for any games that feature “generative AI in any capacity”.

Following this, some social media users began to speculate which games the jurors might be referring to that would be to receive IGF nominations, leading rumors to swirl that Big Walk had used generative AI in some capacity during its development. This prompted the Australian team to release a statement confirming “In the final stretch of Big Walk’s development, LLMs were used sparingly by House House to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs.”

House House’s Statement

The team added a statement to the game’s FAQ, revealing that it had used LLM chatbots during the final stages of the game’s development in order to tackle issues related to tackle engine relation issues and for polishing. The statement reads:

“In the final stretch of Big Walk’s development, LLMs were used sparingly by House House to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs. In some cases, snippets from LLM responses were copied as a starting point to be modified into game code—we’d estimate that well under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had anything to do with this usage, and generative AI was not used in any other context when making the game.”

This is the latest in a string of controversies surrounding generative AI in video game development, as developers and consumers navigate the ethical circumstances of using the technology in artistic processes. Generative AI models are known for sourcing large amounts of code and audiovisual information from existing material, much of which is stolen material. The technology has also contributed massively to the large workforce reduction that the video game industry has faced over the last few years, with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney recently confirming that the studio is taking an “AI-accelerated” approach to development for Fortnite, its storefront, and an unannounced Disney collaboration less than a year after laying off over 1000 employees.

House House claims that Big Walk was not developed with an internal AI usage policy, but that it will implement one for future titles.

Big Walk is available now for PC, PS5, and Switch 2.