# Slay the Spire 2 Dev Explains Why It Used "A Bunch Of Garbage" Art Instead of AI Placeholders > Source: > Published: 2026-07-14 23:54:31+00:00 There's an ever-growing list of games that have received notable backlash for the use of AI-generated placeholder art in games, from [Pearl Abyss's](https://www.techpowerup.com/347630/pearl-abyss-apologizes-for-ai-generated-in-game-artwork-we-should-have-clearly-disclosed-our-use-of-ai) Crimson Desert to [The Alters](https://www.techpowerup.com/338485/the-alters-studio-confirms-ai-use-after-community-backlash), and even the award-winning [Clair Obscur: Expedition 33](https://www.techpowerup.com/344328/clair-obscur-expedition-33-loses-indie-game-awards-wins-over-ai-use). When the [wildly popular Slay the Spire 2](https://www.techpowerup.com/347128/slay-the-spire-2-peaks-at-over-430-000-players-in-first-24-hours) launched to Early Access earlier in 2026, it was littered with roughly scrawled placeholder art. Mega Crit co-founder, Casey Yano recently explained the decision to shirk AI art in favor of the scribbles in a recent interview with GameSpot, and it mostly seems to come down to both communicating to the players that the game is in an early access state and making it obvious what the cards in the deck-builder do. He argues that generative AI also removes authorial intent, so some of the intended communication would be lost if the studio used generative AI art instead of the hastily scrawled concept sketches. Yano explains that "If we use art that looks nearly complete, then people would think that that's going to be the final art. It has to look like shit. It's important that it looks like shit." He notes that part of that communication of the game's incomplete state is self-preservation, because "otherwise people would judge the game as if it's a 1.0, fully developed video game." He also notes that the art helps avoid confusion among both players and other artists: "Prioritization was mostly about making sure that our players have an emotional connection to the content and also recognize what content is what," he continues to say "when you draw placeholder art, there's a very high chance that when we pass it on to our artists...so I do want the [placeholder] art to be kind of like a framework, especially-especially-the art that's used in the timeline. They're the narrative beats, and I want to make sure that those kinds of compositions and colors and details [are] communicated through those drawings."