{"id":73053,"date":"2026-07-31T08:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=73053"},"modified":"2026-07-31T08:37:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:37:01","slug":"square-enix-insists-that-cursed-kingdom-hearts-art-was-not-ai-generated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=73053","title":{"rendered":"Square Enix Insists That Cursed Kingdom Hearts Art Was Not AI-Generated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last month&#8217;s Nintendo Direct was full of all types of treats for Kingdom Hearts fans, including the announcement that native versions of the entire Kingdom Hearts trilogy will be coming to Switch 2 via the release of The Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III]. Players did not respond well to the trilogy&#8217;s key art, which Square Enix shared on X shortly after the announcement. Players quickly noticed several strange details in the image, and accused Square Enix of using generative AI to create it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">GameSpot reached out for comment at the time, and Square Enix has now decided to clear things up. According to a statement shared with GameSpot, The Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] art is not the result of AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;We&#8217;re aware of feedback regarding recent Kingdom Hearts visuals,&#8221; reads the statement, which was shared via phone call with a Square Enix PR rep. &#8220;These assets were created by our development team without the use of generative AI, and the issues resulted from human error.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the &#8220;issues&#8221; being referenced here include Donald Duck having 4 fingers on one hand and 5 on the other, the hands on the clocktower appearing warped, the Keyblade&#8217;s keychain links appearing uneven, Sora&#8217;s crown-shaped belt chain links melting into each other, the absence of the crown-shaped pattern usually seen on the bottom of Sora&#8217;s shoes, and various clothing zippers seeming to fade into nothing, among other issues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Quality is extremely important to us, and updated assets have been implemented where appropriate,&#8221; the statement continued.<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1836175\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/KHfixedartSquare.png?w=636\" alt=\"An altered version of The Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III]&apos;s new key art, which replaces Donald Duck&apos;s five-fingered hand with a proper, four-fingered hand.\" class=\"wp-image-1836175\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The new art fixes Donald&#8217;s hand, but other odd flaws remain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The X post that started it all is still up, but elsewhere online, the image has been replaced with a new version. (The official trailer&#8217;s YouTube thumbnail features a <em>third<\/em> version of the image, in which Donald&#8217;s five-fingered hand is simply obscured.) The new image still features some of the strange details players pointed out in the original key art, including the warped crowns on Sora&#8217;s belt chain, the lack of crowns on his shoe soles, and and the strange links on Mickey&#8217;s Keyblade keychain. The clocktower&#8217;s hands look a bit straighter, but for the most part, it appears the main goal was correcting Donald Duck&#8217;s five-fingered hand, which now features the correct four digits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Square Enix did not provide any commentary as to how the original image came to be.<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/exclusive-disney-insists-that-cursed-kingdom-hearts-art-was-not-ai-generated\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last month&#8217;s Nintendo Direct was full of all types of treats for Kingdom Hearts fans, including the announcement that native versions of the entire Kingdom&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":73054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[429,1501,24614,15266,14186,2503,11777,1895],"class_list":["post-73053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-aigenerated","tag-art","tag-cursed","tag-enix","tag-hearts","tag-insists","tag-kingdom","tag-square","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/73054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}