Last week saw a spate of accusations of AI use in video games, ones where developer denials took strange turns when even the studios or individuals accused couldn’t say for sure they hadn’t used AI. The case of both Fortnite’s new sprays and a swiftly announced-then-cancelled Postal game are the latest signs of how the specter of AI is ruining all of our lives.

Last week, publisher Running With Scissors announced a new game in the Postal series, called Postal: Bullet Paradise. Viewers swiftly began lobbing accusations of AI at the game’s announcement trailer, which has since been pulled down, accusations that developer Goonswarm Games denied. People highlighted concern over the sprites’ mouths in the trailer and an apparently suspicious speedpaint Running With Scissors released, but none of it featured the telltale too-many-fingers or other undeniable signs.

On December 5, Goonswarm announced that the whole thing had gotten so out of hand that they were closing the studio, writing on Twitter, “Our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation… It’s tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident. We’ve decided to shut down the studio and end all future activities.”

We’ve shut down the studio pic.twitter.com/tbW2f2VQxL

— Goonswarm Games (@goonswarmgames) December 5, 2025

I am a person who has zero interest in a Postal game, much less in 2025, but I found watching it all unfold concerning. If Goonswarm had used AI, it seemed unlikely to me that they would deny it so strenuously–what would be the point of lying like this, much less sticking to the lie so intently that you’d close the studio? I wondered if this wasn’t some new version of AI brainrot, where the bullshit technology has been forced down our throats so much that we can’t help but see it everywhere, just as its most strenuous boosters hope.

But then, on December 6, Goonswarm returned to Twitter with an update. It turns out that after “conducting an internal review, we agree with your criticism. The promo art does appear to include or be influenced by AI-generated material.” Goonswarm wrote that “We collaborated with external artists for years and never saw any sign of this” and that the files they received from these external artists “always looked legitimate within our internal pipeline, which is why our initial reaction was to protect our team and defend our innocence. We understand now that your concerns were valid. And we take responsibility for not catching this earlier.” The studio wrote that this possible AI use only extended to the game’s promo art, and that it will “replace all disputed promo art across our projects with pieces created entirely by human artists.” The studio concluded by writing, “We never intended to mislead anyone, and our earlier statements reflected what we honestly believed at the moment.”

pic.twitter.com/UR5g4rxJxz

— Goonswarm Games (@goonswarmgames) December 6, 2025

Running With Scissors followed up on December 10 to say that while it had “needed to cut ties with Goonswarm Games on Friday and state the reason for doing so, our broken trust, we still wanted to give Goonswarm the time and space to be transparent about what had occurred… We wish them all the best as we both move forward our separate ways.”

The idea that an outside artist used AI and didn’t disclose it to the studio is more plausible than Goonswarm riding a lie into the ground, and highlights the insidious nature of AI’s forced ubiquity–how can you ever trust it isn’t being used? The situation bears some similarities to another AI dustup earlier last week, involving accusations of AI use in some new Fortnite sprays. Fans were already on edge about AI in Epic games over comments Tim Sweeney made that “AI will be involved in nearly all future [games] production,” and the sprays in question definitely have the signs, including the telltale too many toes. Other accusations centered on some in-game music.

The freelance artist of one of the sprays responded to the accusations on Instagram, but rather than clearing things up, they made the situation even more confusing. They wrote that “I think the culprit is a clock in the background. I grabbed some clocks off image search, collaged them, and halftoned them. The numbers are bad, entirely possible I grabbed an AI clock and wasn’t paying attention.” Epic has yet to comment on the situation.

Putting aside the idea that a whole cadre of professionals might not notice an AI clock, a ubiquitous and straightforward object that is designed to be easy to gauge the accuracy of, this response highlights a deeper problem with AI. Even if an individual isn’t actively using it, it’s increasingly easy for it to slip in under our noses if we’re not constantly on alert. As AI becomes more convincing, and as it’s forced into more and more places, even if we aren’t trying to engage with AI, we can’t be sure we haven’t.

It’s no wonder that widespread paranoia over all this has taken hold. If even the people making things can’t be sure they aren’t using AI (or at least claim they aren’t sure), how can their audience be confident? And while vigilance is healthy and warranted, what does it mean–especially these days–when we feel like we can’t trust anything we see? False accusations of AI use can harm a person’s academic or artistic career, and it’s also just bad for all of our souls and brains to be constantly on high alert. It makes us prone to distrust and dismissiveness, leaving us less open to other people’s creative works and making it harder for them to share it, especially if they’re still developing their skills. AI is already eroding trust, and our heightened suspicion can make us hostile not just to the work, but to each other. It’s not good for creators or their audiences to live like this, and it’s certainly not a good environment for anyone to try to make things in.

But! “Let’s all show each other some grace, huh?” is not a lesson I can impart to you in the situations above, both of which prove that suspicion was warranted and that the accusations might have been correct. If anything, they suggest that even more suspicion is called for, when the people denying AI use themselves might not even know if they can truthfully deny it. So now how are you supposed to live, pinned between the slow spiritual death of thinking everyone around you is full of shit and the world-eating encroachment of the full-of-shit machine?

Honestly, I don’t know. As we wait for the AI bubble to gloriously burst and all of this to go the way of NFTs and the metaverse, I think the best we can do is remember who our common enemy is: the AI companies and the people who stand to get rich off the tech, who need us to believe all of this is inevitable. We can double down on our commitment to proving them wrong, refuting their bullshit claims and making our displeasure known when AI products get forced into our tools without our consent. No one wants to take the extra time to make sure some reference art or a freelance pitch isn’t AI (ask me how I know!), but maybe we can motivate ourselves by seeing it as one more way to tell the Sam Altmans of the world to get fucked. It wouldn’t prevent the situations above, and it doesn’t help us navigate a world increasingly full of AI slop, but it can at least be a small act of resistance against their shit.