What the developer publicly stated
The statement appears inside the official post for update 1.0.009r. After listing fixes, the team addresses complaints about low-quality Steam backgrounds and says it stands by the position that generative AI was not used in the game itself. That wording is the strongest approved first-party evidence for the AI keyword.
Attribution matters because the post is a developer claim, not an independent forensic audit. The accurate phrasing is that Mandragora stated or said this, rather than this site personally proving every asset pipeline. Keeping the speaker and scope visible lets readers evaluate the primary source without adding certainty the evidence cannot supply.
The official August 11 announcement is the factual basis for this answer. It provides the developer's complete statement and a date that distinguishes the response from earlier community discussion. Search snippets should not replace that first-party context.
The game and community backgrounds are separate
The post draws a boundary between content in the game and Steam community items. It describes the backgrounds as separate support assets made by an external outsourced artist. That distinction should not be erased by saying either that every disputed image was inside the game or that no controversy existed anywhere around the product.
Steam community backgrounds are associated with the game's presence on the platform, but the statement says they were not part of the game itself. A player can reasonably care about both while still reporting their locations accurately. This guide therefore names the platform asset type instead of using the vague phrase all game art.
The official message does not publish the artist's workflow, source files, prompts, tools, contracts, or training data. It says the team should have been more vigilant in reviewing the outsourced assets, but it does not provide a technical investigation that this page can extend. Those production specifics remain To be confirmed.
What action the team reported
The announcement says the studio would no longer work with the external artist and had initiated a review of adjacent support assets. It explains that Steam backend limitations prevented immediate revocation and replacement of backgrounds. A later update in the same post says all backgrounds were replaced.
Those actions are dated facts about the response described by the developer. They do not prove a general policy for every future contractor, nor do they establish how each replacement was created. This page avoids turning one corrective action into an unsupported studio-wide certification.
Readers checking the current Steam inventory may no longer see the exact assets discussed because the post records their replacement. Screenshots from before and after can therefore differ without one necessarily being fabricated. The announcement remains the source for why the change occurred.
Claims the evidence does not support
The official statement does not name a generative model, image service, prompt, dataset, or internal game-development tool. It does not say whether ordinary non-generative automation, procedural techniques, upscaling, or software-assisted workflows were used. Filling those gaps would be speculation.
Community accusations and locked discussion threads show that players raised concerns, but a thread title is not technical proof of how an asset was produced. Conversely, a developer statement does not require readers to ignore their own standards or questions. This guide reports the verifiable exchange without deciding motives that the sources cannot establish.
The statement's phrase game itself should not be stretched to merchandise, marketing, every community item, every contractor draft, or future content. Each new claim needs its own evidence and scope. Any broader studio AI policy is To be confirmed unless Mandragora or tinyBuild publishes it.
How to evaluate later evidence
Prefer dated first-party posts, store disclosures, credits, correction notes, and original asset records over reposted screenshots. Confirm that a quotation has not removed the sentence distinguishing game content from community items. Compare publication dates because an older accusation may precede the replacement update.
If the Steam store adds a formal AI disclosure, record its exact wording and product scope. Steam policies and store fields can change, so this page should not infer what a missing or present field means beyond the current official description. A new developer statement should be read alongside, not silently substituted into, the August response.
Independent technical analysis can add evidence, but it must describe method, files, provenance, limitations, and reproducibility. Visual suspicion alone is not enough to identify a model or workflow reliably. This site will not name tools or creators without that support.
Source and current conclusion
Read the response in the official Steam announcement titled First Update is Live (1.0.009r), dated August 11. The relevant section follows the patch list and precedes the updated note that the backgrounds were replaced. Using the complete post preserves both the original response and the reported corrective action.
The current evidence-backed conclusion has two parts. The developer says no generative AI was used in the game itself, and it separately says outsourced Steam community backgrounds drew complaints and were replaced. Neither part should be omitted when answering the keyword fairly.
Credits and asset revisions can provide context without answering every technical question. Compare archived versions carefully, preserve their dates, and avoid treating compression artifacts or inconsistent style as a model fingerprint. Responsible analysis separates a visible observation from its proposed cause.
Policy language must also be tied to its effective date. A current platform rule does not automatically prove which disclosure field applied when an older asset was uploaded. Use the developer's dated response for this event and Steam's own policy history for a separate compliance question.
Translations of the announcement should preserve attribution and scope. A shortened summary can accidentally turn a developer statement into an independent finding or merge backgrounds with game assets. Link the complete original post whenever possible.
Archive links should retain the update note. The replacement is part of the response. Omitting it leaves the timeline incomplete.
Private production files, the external artist's exact process, and any broader future policy remain To be confirmed. That label is not an accusation or an endorsement; it simply marks what the collected official statement does not establish. The page will change only when a newer verifiable source changes those boundaries.