Big Walk faces Steam backlash over AI use affecting “well under 0.1%” of its code

Big Walk developer House House is facing a surge of negative Steam reviews after revealing that AI chatbots helped with a small amount of coding work late in development.

The studio behind Untitled Goose Game says the assistance was limited, estimating that “well under 0.1%” of Big Walk’s code was connected to its use of large language models. It also says generative AI was not used elsewhere in the game’s development.

That explanation has nevertheless prompted a backlash, with hundreds of negative reviews appearing after the disclosure circulated online.

Big Walk’s Steam reviews take a hit after AI disclosure

Released on August 4, Big Walk still holds a Very Positive overall rating on Steam. Its daily review figures, however, show a sharp increase in negative feedback.

On November 9, the co-op adventure received 135 positive reviews and just three negative ones. The following day brought 426 positive reviews alongside 366 negative reviews.

Figures checked on November 11 showed another 358 positive reviews and 90 negative reviews, suggesting that players were also continuing to support the game throughout the controversy.

House House details chatbot-assisted performance fix

In an addition to Big Walk’s FAQ, House House explained that its main use of AI involved investigating problems in third-party code. Chatbot suggestions occasionally provided a starting point for solutions that the developers subsequently modified.

One example concerned Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline. According to the studio, a rendering issue involving shadows behind the player caused the game to run around 50% slower for roughly 20 seconds during sunrise and sunset.

House House said it investigated the issue independently and consulted a Unity engineer before asking a chatbot for another possible approach.

The team then extensively reworked the proposed solution, resulting in a change of approximately 10 lines within the rendering pipeline.

Studio apologizes and promises an AI policy

House House said it had not included the assistance in Big Walk’s Steam disclosure because, according to the studio, Valve does not require developers to declare chatbot use or coding assistance.

Its explanation was initially written for an Independent Games Festival submission and later published in the FAQ after the issue became public.

The developer stressed that its statement should not be interpreted as an endorsement of AI tools. It also apologized to people whose expectations it had failed to meet, acknowledged that it should have established an internal policy, and committed to developing a more comprehensive approach.

IGF debate raises questions over AI-generated code

The controversy follows a statement from 19 Independent Games Festival jurors who said they would not vote for games that used generative AI during development, including for code.

Those jurors clarified that their position did not represent every judge or the wider IGF organization.