{"id":80109,"date":"2026-08-28T05:17:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=80109"},"modified":"2026-08-28T05:17:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:17:42","slug":"james-ponds-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=80109","title":{"rendered":"James Pond&#8217;s Creator Is Not Happy With The Series&#8217; Allegedly AI-Generated Legacy Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">The developers don&#8217;t have &#8220;a scrap of respect&#8221; for the series, according to Chris Sorrell.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"slide-key image-holder gallery-image-holder credit-image-wrap  lead-image-holder\" data-post-url=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2245979\/james-pond-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/\" data-post-title=\"James Pond's creator is not happy with the series' allegedly AI-generated legacy collection\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-post-id=\"2245979\">\n<picture id=\"p1c9087849be9826afa5b9d95a80f4bb0\">&#13;<source media=\"(min-width: 429px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/james-ponds-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/intro-1787865178.webp\" type=\"image\/webp\">&#13;<source media=\"(max-width: 428px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/james-ponds-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/intro-1787865178.sm.webp\" type=\"image\/webp\">&#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/james-ponds-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/intro-1787865178.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2245979\/james-pond-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/\" data-post-id=\"2245979\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-slide-title=\"James Pond's creator is not happy with the series' allegedly AI-generated legacy collection: \" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"A collage of screenshots from James Pond legacy collection and the game's Switch 2 box art.\"\/>&#13;<br \/>\n                    <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n                    <span class=\"gallery-image-credit\">System 3<\/span>\n                    <\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p dir=\"ltr\">You&#8217;d be forgiven if you didn&#8217;t recognize James Pond, the fish spy star of a series of platformers from the early 1990s. But there is a chance you&#8217;ve heard about the controversy surrounding the series&#8217; upcoming <em>James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough<\/em>, which collects versions of four James Pond games released across the Amiga, Genesis, Commodore 64 and SNES, and which fans have widely accused of being filled with AI-generated art. According to <em>Time Extension<\/em>, the collection has so enraged series creator Chris Sorrell that he&#8217;s on the record as hoping its developers &#8220;choke on an AI-generated fishbone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;I&#8217;m sure it won&#8217;t shock you to hear that I was in no way consulted or involved with this &#8216;legacy&#8217; collection,&#8221; Sorrell shared with <em>Time Extension<\/em>. &#8220;For that to have happened there would have to have been someone with at least a scrap of respect for James Pond involved, when clearly, as their every action demonstrates, that&#8217;s very far from the case.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-holder embedded gallery-image-holder credit-image-wrap\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mNkYAAAAAYAAjCB0C8AAAAASUVORK5CYII=\" alt=\"An illustration explaining System 3's method for converting James Pond art to 3D.\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/uploads\/embed\/it-4oxehW-1787864172.jpg\" border=\"0\"\/><span class=\"gallery-image-credit\">System 3<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Developer System 3 Software announced\u00a0<em>James Pond Legacy<\/em>\u00a0last week with a trailer that was immediately met with skepticism online, <em>Kotaku<\/em> writes. It didn&#8217;t help that the developer&#8217;s blog post defending the &#8220;painstaking, human-led process&#8221; that produced the game&#8217;s art also appeared to use generative AI images.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">As <em>Time Extension<\/em> notes, Sorrell doesn&#8217;t own the rights to James Pond, and doesn&#8217;t have a say in how the series is presented. James Pond is now shared between System 3 and Gameware Europe, which announced its own, seemingly AI-generated, James Pond sequel in 2025. While the new art in the collection is apparently only used in its menus and box art, it does seem garish compared to the game&#8217;s original 2D characters and backgrounds. Rather than a respectful repackaging of the series, the legacy collection is, in Sorrell&#8217;s words, &#8220;a giant reminder of how soulless businessmen have been exploiting a brand for decades.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2245979\/james-pond-creator-is-not-happy-with-the-series-allegedly-ai-generated-legacy-collection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The developers don&#8217;t have &#8220;a scrap of respect&#8221; for the series, according to Chris Sorrell. &#13;&#13;&#13; &#13; System 3 You&#8217;d be forgiven if you didn&#8217;t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","wpcat-32-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80109","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=80109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}