Papers, Please Creator Lucas Pope Pulls Back on Reveals Over AI Risk
Recently, there has been a slew of low-quality, AI-slop games that enjoy copying other games. And while it’s pretty obvious to tell what’s a copy, some developers have taken this as a sign to avoid releasing too many details in case they get stolen.
The creator of Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, is one of those developers. In a recent episode of the Mike & Rami Are Still Here podcast, it was revealed that Lucas Pope pulls back on reveals over the risk of AI.
Pope said he enjoys talking about his work, though “the situation just feels different” in the industry. “You don’t really talk about stuff when you’re working on it,” said Pope during the podcast. “It’s getting slurped up by AI or people are gonna copy it, or something else like that.”
“It’s not a hard rule, but I’ve got a kinda feeling about that. I just don’t feel as comfortable talking about what I’m working on again.”
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean Pope is working on anything right now. According to PC Gamer, Pope talks about how he might not want to create another game. “I was pretty happy with Obra Dinn and Papers, Please. And maybe I can’t do it again? Maybe I just wanna go out on a high note. Why drag myself down with the next thing that people maybe won’t like.”
Pope continued, saying, “I feel lucky with those two games. And I can do the same things again – I can focus on narrative and gameplay and mechanics – but who knows. It could be a total miss. So in that case, I don’t really wanna push my luck too much.”
Papers, Please released in 2013, is a grim border checkpoint job that turned into one of the smartest indie games of its era. Return of the Obra Dinn followed in 2018 with a mystery structure that many players still talk about.
“I’m just finding the fun over here,” Pope said, according to PC Gamer, about the last six years of his game dev career, which includes Playdate-exclusive alien support group sim, Mars After Midnight.
Pope’s fear is pretty common in the gaming world today. Many companies have purged hundreds to thousands of low-quality, AI-slop games, known as shovelware, that have made their way into store pages. For instance, Sony just cracked down on a plethora of games that are direct copies of other games.
Along with that, players are becoming more and more frustrated with AI being used in games, whether it’s for placeholder assets or for voices. While some companies believe AI could be a great help in the creative space, with Nvidia creating DLSS 5, many players have bashed the use entirely.
This is a result of companies doing everything they can to replace AI. For instance, Arc Raiders is working on cutting its AI voices and using professional actors. Along with that, Crimson Desert was seen using AI in artwork, but immediately replaced it in an update when players noticed, apologizing in the process.
While it’s a shame to see that creators are worried about their ideas and creativity being stolen, it seems like this is the shift in the gaming industry for 2026; more developers, especially indie developers, are afraid of sharing their work because of AI.
