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Witchfire Goes To Extreme Lengths And More Money To Ensure an AI-Free Game
Witchfire is committing to a fully AI-free release, with every asset made without AI, even if it means higher costs and more development time.
Witchfire has quietly become one of those rare early-access success stories that feels earned. When it first released in 2023, it didn’t explode overnight, it built momentum the slow way. Over time, the game’s mix of dark fantasy gunplay and roguelite structure pulled in a dedicated community that kept growing with every major patch. Last month, that steady climb hit a big milestone of 500,000 players.
The Astronauts have also kept the updates coming at a pace that makes it feel like the game is always moving forward. Most recently, they dropped Reckoning, a big update, said to be the “second-to-last” milestone before its full release. The gradual build, both in game and in community, is success by itself which can only get better as it moves forward.
The question now is, considering every successful game recently, how much of this is AI-generated? The answer is none, not even a pixel of it.
Witchfire remains AI-free
The AI discussion in games isn’t going away. If anything, it keeps flaring up again and again, especially after high-profile moments like the backlash at Larian and the Expedition 33 awards situation. Even outside those controversies, there’s this growing assumption that making games without AI “help” is either unrealistic or outdated. But Witchfire is pushing back on that idea pretty directly.
In an interview with PCGamesN, The Astronauts’ creative director Adrian Chmielarz explained that while he does use AI in some things especially to polish his English since he’s a native Polish speaker he’s firm on one thing, Witchfire will not contain a single pixel of AI-generated content.
He explained that he does use it for concept reference like, if he needs to communicate a visual idea quickly, he might generate an AI image to show the team what he’s imagining. But that’s where it ends. None of it is allowed to be used directly in the game. Basically, AI can help describe the idea but it can’t be part of the final product.
Chmielarz also shared an example that shows just how strict that rule is in practice. Some of the game’s art is outsourced to an artist The Astronauts have worked with for years. At one point, the artist delivered something unusually polished and fast. Chmielarz asked directly if AI had been used, and the artist said yes but not in the “I typed a prompt and got an image” sense. Instead, it was AI-assisted functionality built into Photoshop, used for finishing touches. But even that didn’t fly.
Chmielarz’s response wasn’t a vague “let’s avoid it when we can.” It was a firm no. He told the artist they couldn’t use those tools, even if it meant the work would take longer and cost more. The artist went back and reworked things the old way, sketching by hand, scanning, and doing finishing touches in Photoshop without any AI features.
That’s the part that makes Witchfire feel like an outlier right now. Not that it avoids AI, but that it avoids it even when it would be easy to justify. Even when the AI use isn’t the “generate a full image from a prompt” type people usually argue about. Even when it’s built into a mainstream tool. Even when it creates extra work.
It’s a pretty sharp contrast to where a lot of the industry seems to be heading. More studios are openly using AI for art generation, for asset work, or even for voice lines. It’s becoming normal to see AI discussed as a cost-saving layer on top of production, and more and more, not using it gets framed as inefficient.
It wasn’t that long ago that game development was expected to be slow, messy, and tedious because that was the reality. But now, in a lot of conversations, doing things the traditional way can almost sound like you’re refusing to “modernize.”
The Astronauts are basically saying they’d rather eat the cost and time than compromise on that. Whether you see it as a principled stance, a marketing-positive position, or just a creative preference, it’s still a notable decision, especially because they’re sticking to it at a point when the game is clearly working.
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Sending some gaming news your way from a surfing paradise island. Loves creating content, and researching informative facts and useless trivia. A novice in the gaming industry but a veteran in communications and publication.
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