House House, the Australian studio behind Untitled Goose Game, has issued a public disclosure confirming limited use of large language models (LLMs) during the final stretch of Big Walk’s development.
Big Walk launched in August 2026 to critical acclaim and reached one million sales in less than a week.
The studio’s statement was first posted as part of its IGF Awards submission and later published on the developer FAQ in response to public interest.
In its disclosure, House House said LLMs were used sparingly to address difficult technical problems and bugs.
The studio estimated that “well under 0.1%” of Big Walk’s code was influenced by LLM-generated suggestions and emphasized that generative AI was not used in other aspects of the game’s creation.
House House also acknowledged that it did not have an internal AI usage policy during development and described that omission as a failure it intends to rectify.
House House provided a concrete technical example to illustrate the LLM’s role.
The team reported a Unity URP (Universal Render Pipeline) issue in which shadow casters behind the player were treated as if they were at infinite distance, causing a roughly 50% performance hit for about 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset.
After speaking with a Unity engineer who concluded the desired behavior seemed impossible, the team consulted an LLM chatbot; it suggested a potential fix that, after substantial modification by House House developers, worked.
The fix amounted to around ten lines of code inside URP, the studio said.
The disclosure notes platform differences in AI policy.
House House stated it had not made a disclosure on Steam because, while Steam requires a generative AI disclosure on its storefront, the platform does not request specific disclosure of code or chatbot usage.
The studio said it posted the full explanation publicly because the matter had become one of public interest.
The statement comes amid broader debate at the Independent Games Festival: a group of IGF jurors, including Austin Walker and Sam Barlow, previously released a signed statement indicating they would not vote for any game that used generative AI in any capacity.
House House said its disclosure was not an endorsement of AI tools and expressed support for efforts to limit harms posed by generative AI to games and wider society.
House House’s disclosure reinforces growing industry scrutiny around generative AI in game development and signals that at least some studios will publicly document limited, targeted uses of LLMs while committing to formal internal policies going forward.
Big Walk launched in August 2026 to critical acclaim and reached one million sales in less than a week.
The studio’s statement was first posted as part of its IGF Awards submission and later published on the developer FAQ in response to public interest.
In its disclosure, House House said LLMs were used sparingly to address difficult technical problems and bugs.
The studio estimated that “well under 0.1%” of Big Walk’s code was influenced by LLM-generated suggestions and emphasized that generative AI was not used in other aspects of the game’s creation.
House House also acknowledged that it did not have an internal AI usage policy during development and described that omission as a failure it intends to rectify.
House House provided a concrete technical example to illustrate the LLM’s role.
The team reported a Unity URP (Universal Render Pipeline) issue in which shadow casters behind the player were treated as if they were at infinite distance, causing a roughly 50% performance hit for about 20 seconds at sunrise and sunset.
After speaking with a Unity engineer who concluded the desired behavior seemed impossible, the team consulted an LLM chatbot; it suggested a potential fix that, after substantial modification by House House developers, worked.
The fix amounted to around ten lines of code inside URP, the studio said.
The disclosure notes platform differences in AI policy.
House House stated it had not made a disclosure on Steam because, while Steam requires a generative AI disclosure on its storefront, the platform does not request specific disclosure of code or chatbot usage.
The studio said it posted the full explanation publicly because the matter had become one of public interest.
The statement comes amid broader debate at the Independent Games Festival: a group of IGF jurors, including Austin Walker and Sam Barlow, previously released a signed statement indicating they would not vote for any game that used generative AI in any capacity.
House House said its disclosure was not an endorsement of AI tools and expressed support for efforts to limit harms posed by generative AI to games and wider society.
House House’s disclosure reinforces growing industry scrutiny around generative AI in game development and signals that at least some studios will publicly document limited, targeted uses of LLMs while committing to formal internal policies going forward.
