House House discloses limited AI use in Big Walk development

House House disclosed on Nov. 10, 2026 in its Big Walk FAQ that it used large language models sparingly during the final stretch of development to work through difficult technical challenges and bugs, and estimated the LLM-related code at well under 0.1 percent of the game. The studio said the game made no other use of generative AI.

The studio, previously best known for its 2019 hit Untitled Goose Game, released Big Walk in August 2026 to critical acclaim, and the game reached one million sales in less than a week. Big Walk is listed in connection with Mac, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, and PS5.

The immediate problem was a Unity Universal Render Pipeline (URP) shadow-caster culling issue that made Big Walk run 50 percent slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset, twice per in-game day during golden hour, affecting players on weaker hardware and reviewers. House House researched the problem, inspected the URP code, and spoke directly to a Unity engineer who concluded the desired solution was not possible. An LLM chatbot then suggested a possible fix that the team modified extensively, and the resulting change represented about 10 lines of code inside URP. Some snippets from LLM responses were copied as a starting point and modified into game code.

House House has not published the size of Big Walk’s codebase, the number of LLM snippets, or a tracking method, so outsiders cannot independently verify the well under 0.1 percent figure. The disclosure does not name a specific chatbot or language model, and credits no individual developer.

Big Walk had no internal AI usage policy during development, the company said, calling the absence a failure. “Big Walk was developed without an internal AI usage policy in place, and we consider that lack of policy a failure,” the studio said. House House will work to have a more comprehensive AI policy going forward.

A group of 2027 Independent Games Festival jurors announced they would decline to vote for any game that uses generative AI in any capacity. “This year we are declining to vote for any game that uses generative AI in any capacity,” the jurors said. The jurors’ statement also said AI-generated code counts toward the harms they tie to generative AI, and noted a significant rise in games submitted that were built using generative AI tools. The jurors called on the IGF to put a strong anti-AI policy in place for future festivals, one that bars games with any AI-generated work.

Nineteen IGF jurors signed the statement, which was approved by IGF leadership. Signees included Austin Walker, Sam Barlow, Lena Reine, Brendon Chung, Aura Triolo, aurahack and more. Liz Ryerson, another juror, said Big Walk was under consideration by the IGF and that judges discussed whether its use of generative AI would be acceptable. Bruno Diaz, the Fallen London lead designer and Pathologic 2 localization writer, confirmed IGF judges were made aware of the LLM use in Big Walk’s development by House House because disclosure was required by IGF rules.

Big Walk was submitted for the 2027 Independent Games Festival. Submissions closed on September 13, and finalists are due in January 2027. House House wrote a version of the disclosure for the IGF because AI disclosure was a suggested part of Big Walk’s submission, and posted it publicly because the issue had become a matter of public interest.

No IGF ruling on Big Walk’s eligibility or finalist status has been announced. TheGamer reports that Big Walk will not be considered for the IGF’s Game of the Year award, and says IGF representatives had a tough time deliberating on nominations because AI was used during the game’s development.

Big Walk was already nominated for the Golden Joysticks Game of the Year, with the winner to be announced this week. TheGamer claims the game might not be safe from having its win revoked even after winning, pointing to last year’s case in which Expedition 33 forfeited its Indie Game Awards Game of the Year after AI use was discovered following the award, and runner-up Blue Prince received it instead.

House House released its AI clarification statement to Aftermath after the Independent Games Festival jurors announced their anti-AI voting stance. Aftermath described the discussion around Big Walk as deeply divisive.

Some people saw the news as a major disappointment despite the seemingly minor use, while others treated it as a sign of the times or suspicion running ahead of the facts.

House House said the statement does not endorse or argue for AI tools, however minimal their use. The studio said it backs efforts to limit generative AI’s harm to games and the world, and apologized that its LLM usage may not meet those standards. It also voiced concern that voluntary disclosures might contribute to the normalization of AI technology or its treatment as inevitable.

Last month, House House published a statement explaining that the Palestinian-led BDS boycott against Microsoft is the reason Big Walk is not being published on Xbox platforms. House House has not disclosed the AI usage on Steam because the platform does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage.

Tech Insider describes Big Walk as coming from the team that made Untitled Goose Game, a studio known for a distinctly human-made, quirky style. The outlet says many small teams adopted chatbots informally, one developer at a time, with no written rule about what is acceptable. It adds that industry disclosure rules for storefronts have generally been aimed mainly at AI-generated content that reaches players, and those rules have been revised more than once.

House House’s FAQ section titled “Was AI used to make Big Walk?” was added to Big Walk’s FAQ sometime after October 23, 2026. Kyle “SlyDante” LeClair, a four-time IGF judge, said the most-discussed game during IGF’s voting process “almost entirely involved its AI usage.”