House House, the studio behind Untitled Goose Game, has confirmed that it made limited use of large language models (LLMs) in the final stretch of development on Big Walk, which launched on August 4, 2026. The statement comes amid a heated debate over AI within the jury of the 2027 Independent Games Festival (IGF).
According to the report Oyun Günlüğü obtained from Aftermath, the studio said it used LLMs to work through difficult technical challenges and bugs, and in some cases took snippets from chatbot responses as a starting point before modifying them into game code. House House stressed that well under 0.1 percent of Big Walk’s code was related to this usage and that generative AI was not used anywhere else in the game.
A chatbot helped fix a shadow problem
As an example, the studio pointed to an issue with Unity’s URP. Because shadow casters behind the camera could not be culled by distance, the game ran 50 percent slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset. After failing to solve the problem through its own research and a conversation with a Unity engineer, the team turned to an LLM chatbot. The suggested fix was heavily modified before being implemented and amounted to about 10 lines of code inside URP.
IGF jurors take a stand against AI
The debate began with a joint statement from 19 jurors for the 2027 IGF awards. The group, which includes Austin Walker and Sam Barlow, announced that it will not vote for any game that uses generative AI in any capacity this year. The statement made no distinction between visuals, sound and code, describing programming as a creative discipline whose labour deserves respect. Citing a significant rise in submissions developed with generative AI, the jurors urged the IGF to adopt a policy that disallows games containing AI-generated work in future years. They also noted that the statement was approved by IGF leadership but does not represent the organisation or the entire jury.
Although the jurors named no games, social media quickly identified Big Walk as one of the biggest factors behind the dispute. For some jurors, AI use in a game regarded as one of the best of the year was a major disappointment. Others saw it as a sign of the times, arguing that distrust of the technology was alienating a game expected to appear on many game of the year shortlists.
House House apologises
The studio said it originally wrote the disclosure as a suggested part of its IGF submission and made no disclosure on Steam because the platform does not ask about code or chatbot usage. Publishing it now because the matter has become of public interest, House House said the statement is not an endorsement of AI tools and voiced concern that voluntary disclosures may help normalise the technology. The studio said it supports those working to limit the harm generative AI is doing to games and apologised that Big Walk’s usage may not meet their standards.
House House added that Big Walk was developed without an internal AI usage policy, which it considers a failure, and that it will put a more comprehensive policy in place going forward. Published by Panic, Big Walk is available on PC, Mac, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2.
