Following accusations, James Pond Legacy devs say no generative AI was used in creating artwork - gonintendo.com

Earlier today System 3 announced that James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough will make its first splash on Nintendo Switch 2 in October 2026, led by a strictly limited physical collector’s release created with game preservation at its heart. Bringing together 12 versions of four classic James Pond games, the collection spans the Amiga 500, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and Commodore 64. With a production run limited to no more than 6,000 physical copies, the collection gives longtime fans and newly recruited agents the opportunity to own a tangible piece of James Pond history.

As soon as the debut trailer for James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough dropped, gamers were quick to lob AI accusations at the artwork that appears. All you need to do is head to the comments of the trailer above and you’ll see account after account making AI claims. It seems System 3 may have expected such a reaction, as they’ve already released multiple statements pushing back on the accusation.

Included with the official press materials for James Pond Legacy: The Pond Is Not Enough is a document entitled “From Retro Pixels to the Pondverse: The Bovine Bomber Recreated in 3D,” which gives an extensive breakdown of how the game’s art was created. Within that document (which you can read in full here) is the following blurb which flat-out states that generative AI wasn’t used.

No generative AI was used in the creation of the artwork. Every stage began with the authentic original James Pond graphic and was completed using traditional digital illustration, 3D rendering and manual artistic refinement.

Along with that GameSpot received a comment from System 3’s PR team that reads as follows:

“System 3 has confirmed with [the PR team] that no generative AI was used to create the character artwork highlighted in the trailer. The Pondverse characters were produced through a human-led process beginning with the authentic James Pond pixel graphics.”

System 3 even included the artwork above, which shows the step-by-step process in how the character designs were updated from the original sprites.

So it seems System 3 is adamant that generative AI wasn’t used when creating the game’s artwork. As to whether generative AI was used to create the trailer itself, we don’t have a straight answer on that, but at least the biggest question has been addressed. We’ll keep tabs on this situation to see if any further statements are shared.

It can't be AI! Look, we generated all the steps, so it's like we made it!

The robo udders don't even match. No way this junk isn't AI. Milk can arm becomes the Mega Buster somehow? I'm not buying it... Also just noticed the rivets around the cockpit are gone and the og sprite has a metallic look which was completely lost.

I've seen enough AI bullshit on the eshop to be able to tell that the artwork in the video's thumbnail is AI slop.

The arm-cannon is the part I have trouble with. In the original art, it's clearly an old metal milk can from a dairy. That fits the theme. Images 3 & 4, it's no longer a dairy can, which is fine if someone just decided to remove that reference. Image 2, though, is half dairy can and half not, which feels like what happens when you approximate shapes without actually knowing what they mean.

Oh, I vaguely know of this! James Pond is currently co-owned by both System 3 and Gameware Europe, and I am very confident that Gameware has been using gen AI to promote their own site and games. Most of Gameware Europe's current games are all generic mobile games in a generic faux-Pixar artstyle; there's a trailer with a kid slinging paint everywhere and the fluid motion looks incredibly unnatural. They also tried to remake an old render of the 90s game Creatures 2, but the render completely misinterprets everything from the original image such as by turning the ugly lizard creature into a cute furry creature. And this is stuff Gameware was *proud* to put on their website.

System 3 is not Gameware Europe. As far as I know they do not associate with each other aside from both having a legal claim on the same IP. But they do seem to be cut from the same cloth, and the original James Pond creator has denounced both and them and distanced himself from the brand.

...And even if we took System 3's claim that this isn't gen AI as truth (and I don't believe them at all), there's so many baffling decisions in the art direction. If James Pond is supposed to be a fish, why does his child self have legs? Why do several Jameses Pond have different styles of eyes and brows? How does the cow robot with googly crossed eyes get streamlined into a relatively normal cow? Why does the trailer use so much clip art like it's a teen's first AMV? (No shade to the teenagers, at least those are true passion projects.)