Big Walk
Image: Panic

House House, the Australian development team behind indie hit Big Walk, has issued a statement via its FAQ page detailing a previously undisclosed use of AI "in the final stretch" of the game's development.

This comes following a "voluntary disclosure" as part of the game's submission for next year's IGF Awards. Earlier, a selection of IGF jurors issued a signed statement signalling their intention not to vote "for any game that uses generative AI in any capacity."

Specifically, House House says LLMs (Large Language Models) were used "sparingly [...] to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs." The team estimates that "well under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had anything to do with this usage," and stresses that "generative AI was not used in any other context when making the game."

While Steam requires a generative AI disclosure on its storefront, the platform "does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage."

House House provides an example of an issue that caused the game to "run 50% slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset":

"We researched the problem extensively, and we looked at the URP code ourselves, but we couldn’t find a way. Then, we were able to speak directly to an engineer at Unity, who asked around and ultimately concluded that what we wanted wasn’t possible. Finally, we posed the question to an LLM chatbot. After a few dead ends, it suggested a possible fix, and while we had to modify the suggestion extensively, it worked. This fix represented about 10 lines of code inside URP."

The developer goes on to say that this usage is "not an endorsement" of AI tools and that the developers "support the work of those who are trying to limit the harm generative AI is doing to videogames and our world, and apologise that Big Walk’s LLM usage may not meet their standards."

The lack of an internal AI policy was a "failure", according to the statement, and the team intends to "have a more comprehensive policy going forwards."

Here's House House's statement on its LLM usage in full (thanks, Aftermath):

In the final stretch of Big Walk’s development, LLMs were used sparingly by House House to help work through difficult technical challenges and bugs. In some cases, snippets from LLM responses were copied as a starting point to be modified into game code—we’d estimate that well under 0.1% of Big Walk’s code had anything to do with this usage, and generative AI was not used in any other context when making the game.

The primary use case for House House’s use of LLMs was to research, via chatbots, issues we encountered with third-party code. If you’re technically-minded, and curious, here’s an example. We needed to cull shadow casters by distance from the camera, but Unity URP only allows culling shadow casters by distance in camera forwards, so shadow casters behind the player were being rendered at an infinite distance. This made our game run 50% slower for around 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset. We researched the problem extensively, and we looked at the URP code ourselves, but we couldn’t find a way. Then, we were able to speak directly to an engineer at Unity, who asked around and ultimately concluded that what we wanted wasn’t possible. Finally, we posed the question to an LLM chatbot. After a few dead ends, it suggested a possible fix, and while we had to modify the suggestion extensively, it worked. This fix represented about 10 lines of code inside URP.

We originally wrote a version of the above disclosure as it was a suggested part of our IGF submission. We have not made any disclosure on Steam as the platform does not request disclosure of code or chatbot usage. We are posting this disclosure as it has become a matter of public interest.

This is not an endorsement of, or argument for, the use of AI tools, however minimal. We have some concern that voluntary disclosures like this might contribute to the normalisation of this technology, or its treatment as “inevitable”. We support the work of those who are trying to limit the harm generative AI is doing to videogames and our world, and apologise that Big Walk’s LLM usage may not meet their standards.

Big Walk was developed without an internal AI usage policy in place, and we consider that lack of policy a failure. We will work to have a more comprehensive policy going forwards.

For further context, here's the earlier statement put out by a select group of IGF jurors, including Austin Walker and Sam Barlow:

Last month, House House published a separate statement explaining that the Palestinian-led BDS boycott against Microsoft is the reason the developer isn't publishing Big Walk on Xbox platforms.

House House was previously best known for its 2019 hit Untitled Goose Game. Big Walk launched in August 2026 to critical acclaim and reached one million sales in less than a week.

[source bigwalk.game, via aftermath.site]