We are Stars

t was easy to miss among some of the bigger announcements last week, but Panache Digital--the studio behind Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey--is working on a game called 1666: Amsterdam, and decided to reveal it in pretty much the dumbest way imaginable in 2026.

While there was the potential for this to be a cool story--Panache founder Patrice Desailets helped create Assassin's Creed and was working on 1666 at Ubisoft before managing to get the IP off them--most discussion about the game I’ve seen has instead centred on the fact that not only does its demo contain AI-generated imagery throughout, but even the game's key art is riddled with nonsensical buttons and mismatched stitching, as you can see in the image up top.

In response to fans instantly noticing this and criticising the team, even on Twitter, Panache have issued a statement that follows a now-familiar pattern of "Oh, how did this happen?!":

A number of people have raised questions or concerns to us about whether assets in our marketing and game use generative AI. We have a dedicated team of over a dozen talented and experienced artists. With them, we looked into the assets in question and found that there were indeed some early versions of assets that made their way into the the prologue. This includes some in-game portraits and external marketing assets. We are actively reviewing the assets in question. Human made versions will be released in an update dropping soon. We own up to this oversight and apologize for any upset caused. Please be assured that the Early Access and full game will not include any assets generated by AI.

Kitty commission for @themystman!

Nude alt

Commission Info / Nude Commission Info

Age of Umbra Sallowlands Character art shared on CR socials (src)

Laura Bailey - Sister

Vico - Caguama

Zach - Alphonse

Abubakar - Mercy

"The Source"

by Luo Li Rong