Highlights
- Roblox faces IP theft accusations over its new AI world model.
- AI demo allegedly copies assets from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
- The controversy fuels debate on generative AI ethics and data scraping.
Roblox Corp.'s attempt to demonstrate new artificial-intelligence technology backfired this week after users accused the company of training its system on copyrighted game content.
The gaming platform on Feb. 5 posted a video on X showing its AI-powered world-building tool. In the demonstration, a user typed "woman in a glowing cave" and the system generated a playable 3D scene featuring a female character exploring an aquatic cavern.
Players quickly noticed the character's outfit and environment closely matched elements from "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33," which won Game of the Year in 2025. The AI-generated character appeared nearly identical to Maelle, a protagonist from Expedition 33, while the cave resembled the game's "Flying Waters" level, though at lower visual quality—832x480p resolution running at 16 frames per second.
AI World Model Faces Backlash Over Training Data
The world-building tool appears to function similar to Google’s Project Genie, which launched last week and faced similar accusations of ripping off Mario and Zelda gameplay. The company said the AI model is "designed to help creators 'paint' worlds in Roblox Studio" and power a feature called Dream Theater for real-time world building.
Roblox said its model was trained on "a combination of data, including proprietary Roblox 3D avatar/world interaction data" from more than 13 billion hours of monthly player activity. The company didn't specify what other data sources were used.
The situation carries a heavy layer of irony given the game's own history; During the 2025 gaming awards season, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was stripped of two honors at the Indie Game Awards after developers admitted to using placeholder textures that were accidentally left in the game at launch and were patched out within 5 days.
As of now, Sandfall Interactive has not issued an official comment regarding the similarity, mirroring Nintendo's current silence on Google's Project Genie.
