Square Enix Says Controversial Kingdom Hearts Collection Art Was the Result of 'Human Error,' Not Generative AI

The arguable cardinal creation for Kingdom Hearts Collection 1-3 did not incorporate immoderate AI-generated materials and was really the effect of "human error," according to a caller connection from Square Enix.

Fans person been trying to unlock the enigma down immoderate unusual and concerning creation posted by the steadfast since it was revealed successful June. The illustration successful question arrived alongside the uncover that Kingdom Hearts Collection 1-3 would soon travel to PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S, but it didn't instrumentality agelong for players to announcement a fewer worrying details.

Social media posts pursuing the announcement rapidly took purpose astatine the concatenation connected Mickey Mouse's Keyblade, the hands connected the Traverse Town clocktower, and the details connected the bottommost of Sora's shoes. The existent canary successful the ember mine, though, were Donald Duck's hands, with 1 featuring 4 fingers, portion the different featured five. These expected pieces of grounds had fans believing Square Enix utilized artificial quality to make further details for an existing creation piece, but the steadfast has yet chimed successful to refute these claims.

This appears Ai generated oregon Ai enhanced, tin you marque a connection regarding this? Very disappointed to spot this. pic.twitter.com/IMhwrhB0Y3

In a connection shared with GameSpot, a Square Enix typical said that the steadfast has heard the feedback and made changes wherever necessary. More importantly, though, the connection stated that nary genAI was utilized for immoderate mentation of the image.

"We’re alert of feedback regarding caller Kingdom Hearts visuals," the Square Enix spokesperson told the tract via telephone call. "These assets were created by our improvement squad without the usage of generative AI, and the issues resulted from quality error.

"Quality is highly important to us, and updated assets person been implemented wherever appropriate."

Square Enix did not clarify however the creation came to beryllium successful the archetypal place. Additionally, arsenic mentioned by GameSpot, the updated creation does look to person fixed Donald's hand, but different details, specified arsenic that muddy-looking clocktower and Sora's shoes, remain. Either way, not everyone is blessed with the explanation.

"We’ve recovered truthful overmuch of the creation that was retrofitted to marque the representation that I dunno if anyone was arguing that the full representation was AI. It’s conscionable sloppy and bad," 1 instrumentality connected Reddit said.

"They mightiness arsenic good conscionable scrap this and marque caller screen creation astatine this point," different added. "Even if it's not AI-generated, it's decidedly 1 of the worst KH screen arts. The creation conscionable looks lazy."

"It was decidedly AI," 1 X/Twitter idiosyncratic suggested. "I emotion Kingdom Hearts and Square Enix but travel on. There's 2 versions of the picture, 1 wherever the characters are separated and 1 wherever they're not, and the 1 wherever they're not is evident they utilized AI for it, which caused it to marque other fingers."

Kingdom Hearts Collection 1-3 comes to PC, Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X | S October 8, 2026. In the meantime, you tin spot the latest connected Kingdom Hearts 4, which reappeared soon aft the postulation was announced.

Michael Cripe is simply a freelance writer with IGN. He's champion known for his enactment astatine sites similar The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be definite to springiness him a travel connected Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).