We predicted last week that, with Summer Game Fest season upon us, we’d be seeing an uptick in the number of cool-looking new games that, whoops, were made with AI. Is the new Kingdom Hearts Collection (1-3), announced today during the Nintendo Direct showcase, one of them? To paraphrase the famous Ancient Aliens meme, I’m not saying the answer is yes, but it’s yes.
The potential use of AI was once again given away by funky fingers, in this case on official artwork featuring the great American avatar Donald Duck. As noted by Tracker_TD on Bluesky, the second-best waterfowl maniac in animation history (I’m a Daffy man, myself) has three fingers on his right hand, but four on his left—plus a thumb in both cases. There’s really no missing it.
that KH Switch collection pack thing sure has some interesting cover art
interesting choice to give Donald a mismatched number of fingers on each hand, and a beak that absorbs into itself
— @tracker-td.bsky.social (@tracker-td.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-06-09T22:32:10.415Z
A number of press images accompanying the announcement have Donald’s four-fingered hand covered, but it’s clearly visible in an image posted by the official Kingdom Hearts account on X, and in a different piece of key art available on the Square Enix website—it’s 100% official, extra finger and all.
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(Image credit: Square Enix)
There are no other cases of extra (or missing) fingers in the image that I’ve noticed, but I do wonder what exactly is going on with—to quote PC Gamer wordsmith Morgan Park’s reaction—”Sora’s whack-ass hand.” Is that normal? At least it’s got the right number of fingers, I guess.
(Image credit: Square Enix)
I’ve never been very good at picking out telltale signs of generative AI in promotional images, but those Donald fingers seem pretty egregious—and even more so when compared to this image posted in response to Tracker_TD’s message, which looks very similar but contains the correct number of fingers.
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Did they take this old 3D render and get AI to turn it into an “illustration”…?
— @cdrom.ca (@cdrom.ca.bsky.social) 2026-06-09T22:15:11.422Z
Interestingly, folks who are hip to the scene said the real evidence isn’t in the obvious stuff, but in the backgrounds, which are also visibly off when you get in close. “It’s always the backgrounds,” jessarcade wrote. “It’s detailed but lazy in a way that doesn’t make sense for a human artist.”
Oh my god just why
— @chrisscheidig.bsky.social (@chrisscheidig.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-06-09T22:15:11.254Z
Yeah, there’s more. Some of the oddities could be explained by an artist in a rush, or just good old-fashioned sloppiness, but collectively? It’s a lot.
Here is a post going around that is pointing out each of the signs that this is indeed AI
— @retrogameart.bsky.social (@retrogameart.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-06-09T22:15:11.345Z
I’d say it’s pretty certain that generative AI was put to use here, but at this point all we can really do is speculate. Kingdom Hearts Collection (1-3) is coming to PC along with consoles, but Square Enix only announced it for the Microsoft Store—there’s no listing on Steam, which is the only storefront that requires AI disclosure. I’ve reached out to Square Enix to ask about the use of generative AI in the new game, and will update when they apologize for it.
