Players were right to suspect AI use in 1666: Amsterdam, dev apologizes

1666: Amsterdam, the long-in-development project from Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets, drew attention at Summer Game Fest with a moody narrative teaser. Panache Digital Games followed with a playable prologue on Steam, and players soon noticed visual oddities; the studio confirmed that some early AI-generated assets, including in-game portraits and external marketing pieces, had made it into the prologue.

Panache said it has a dedicated team of over a dozen artists, is reviewing the assets, will release human-made replacements in an upcoming update, and apologized "for any upset caused," while assuring that Early Access and the full game will not include AI-generated assets.

The admission makes clear AI was used during development even if those assets are later replaced. Framing the inclusion as an oversight and apologizing for the upset rather than addressing the decision to use generative tools leaves questions about how and why those assets were employed.

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