Jagex pull Runescape trailer and apologise for genAI use after complaints about six-fingered knights, pinning the blame on a "trusted external partner"

A most unholy image

I'm really tired of writing about genAI today. It's my first news shift with RPS, and within a few hours, I've written three stories that are solely about genAI use by modders, indie outfits and now, somehow, Jagex. Still, the horrors persist, and so I must continue reporting on them.

As part of RuneFest 2026, Jagex unveiled a new trailer for RuneScape 3's Hoard of Dragons expansion, featuring the Dragon Slayer II quest, arriving in 2027. That video I linked to is a reupload by another channel, as Jagex very quickly took down their own upload of the video due to the trailer's use of genAI imagery being pointed out (thanks, Kotaku!)

Despite the hand-drawn sketching style of the trailer, certain parts of it very much appear like something a human would never draw. Highlights include a knight with six fingers at 1:18, and one example that made me laugh out loud: 0:56's depiction of a high-jumping knight wearing sneakers. Unlike other examples of sportswear making appearances in games as part of marketing deals, like Spider-Man 2's horrific Evolved suit for Miles that was no more than a swinging Adidas ad, it seems to be quite unintentional for this medieval warrior to be wearing what seem to be Nikes.

After taking down the trailer, Jagex's social manager Alex Sween posted on the 2007 Runescape subreddit, explaining that "This trailer was produced by a trusted external partner who had explicitly confirmed that GenAI would not be used. But, among other things, there’s a sixth finger and, well, that’s pretty hard to explain away. For that we apologise." It's a telling statement, as it seems to be admitting that Jagex were at fault for allowing it to slip through the cracks and be commissioned, paid for and used in marketing as is, while also blaming a 'trusted external partner' for making it in the first place. Despite excessive knight digits and armoured fake J's arguably being the sort of thing a no-genAI company could spot a mile off, Sween doubles down, stating that "Our position is clear at Jagex: we don’t use GenAI to create our games, artwork or creative assets, and will not knowingly allow it to be used on our behalf." Yeah, I'm sure. That's why it's happened twice in the past few weeks.

There's a vague promise of "overhauling our review processes", which I imagine just means 'We really wish you hadn't caught this and we hope you don't next time.'

There really isn't that much of a moral difference between generating AI slop yourself, or letting it pass under your nose without caring for its quality (and paying for it!) Either way, it displays a profound lack of care for the artists that worked for decades on making Runescape what it is. At the very least, a knight anachronistically wearing sneakers can be fun, but I want to know a human drew that because they thought it was fun.