A split screen
Look at Steam and generative AI appears to have won. By the end of 2025, 4,311 games on the store carried an AI content disclosure, about 22 percent of the roughly 20,004 titles released on Steam that year. The AI and Games analyst Tommy Thompson expects that share to reach a third of releases in 2026.
Ask the people who make games and the picture flips. In the Game Developers Conference State of the Game Industry survey, only 7 percent of developers said generative AI is good for the industry. The tools are spreading through storefronts far faster than the goodwill behind them, and that gap is the story of AI in games this year.
The flashpoints
The friction shows up game by game. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 used generative art in cosmetic items. Arc Raiders drew criticism over AI voice models, and Battlefield 6 came under fire over suspected AI art in cosmetics. The Alters disclosed generative AI used for background text and translations, which arrived after players had already noticed it.
Some cases went further than grumbling. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was disqualified from an Indie Game Awards over generative AI use. Fortnite's AI-voiced Darth Vader drew an unfair labor practice charge. Each episode followed the same pattern: players spotted the AI, the studio explained, and the argument moved to social media before the patch notes were even out.
At the same time a new category is emerging that leans in rather than away. AI-native releases such as AI2U: With You Til The End and Vaudeville built their pitch around generative systems, and a fully AI-generated game called Codex Mortis has put out a playable demo. For now these are curiosities rather than hits, but they mark the far end of a spectrum that runs from a game made entirely without generative AI to one that could not exist without it.
“Indie devs can use it on their game's store page to assure potential players that their game was made without the use of Generative AI.”
Drawing lines
Developers are starting to organise around the divide rather than just complain about it. A group of indie studios created a No Gen AI badge that teams can place on a Steam page to signal a game was made without generative tools. "Indie devs can use it on their game's store page to assure potential players that their game was made without the use of Generative AI," said Alex Kanaris-Sotiriou, creative director at Polygon Treehouse.
The unease reaches the money side of the business too. Moritz Baier-Lentz of Lightspeed Venture Partners described developer sentiment toward AI as "shocking and sad." The technology is not going away, and the disclosure count will keep climbing. What 2026 has settled is that a large part of the workforce that actually builds games does not want generative AI, and is now willing to say so, in public, on the store page.
Frequently asked
How many Steam games disclose generative AI?
About 4,311 by the end of 2025, roughly 22 percent of the games released on Steam that year, with the share projected to keep rising through 2026.
Do developers support generative AI?
In the GDC State of the Game Industry survey, only 7 percent of developers said generative AI is good for the industry.
What is the No Gen AI badge?
A label some indie developers add to their Steam pages to tell players a game was made without generative AI.