A knight with six fingers. Another one wearing what look suspiciously like sneakers. These are not artistic choices. These are the telltale signs of generative AI slipping through a studio's quality control, and this time the studio is Jagex.
The sequence of events is pretty straightforward. At RuneFest 2026, Jagex unveiled a trailer for RuneScape 3's upcoming Hoard of Dragons expansion, which includes the Dragon Slayer II quest and is currently targeting a 2027 release. Players watched the video, noticed the hand-drawn sketch style looked slightly off in places, and then someone paused at the 1:18 mark. Six fingers. Then someone rewound to 0:56. A high-jumping medieval knight, fully armored, wearing what appear to be Nike-style sneakers.
Jagex pulled the trailer from their official channel almost immediately.
What Jagex said, and what it actually means
Alex Sween, Jagex's social manager, posted a statement on the Old School RuneScape subreddit (r/2007scape) explaining the situation. The short version: a trusted external partner produced the trailer after explicitly confirming that generative AI would not be used. That partner, apparently, lied or cut corners. Sween's post states 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."
Here's the thing, though. A six-fingered knight and a warrior in sneakers are not subtle. These are the kind of artifacts that anyone reviewing footage frame-by-frame, or even just watching it at normal speed with a critical eye, could reasonably flag. The statement promises an overhaul of review processes going forward, which is the right response, but it also raises the obvious question of what the review process looked like before this got through.
Sween's post also acknowledged this isn't the first time it has happened. Jagex noted the issue has occurred at least twice in recent weeks, which makes the "trusted external partner" framing land a little differently the second time around.
Why the Old School RuneScape community reacted so strongly
RuneScape has one of the most art-literate player bases in the MMO space. The game's visual identity has been built by human artists over more than two decades, and the community around both RuneScape 3 and Old School RuneScape is deeply protective of that legacy. Pixel art, hand-drawn assets, and the specific aesthetic charm of the game's world are things players actively care about and notice when something feels wrong.
Generative AI imagery tends to fail in exactly the ways this trailer did: anatomical errors, clothing anachronisms, textures that look right from a distance but fall apart on inspection. For a community that has spent years watching Jagex navigate difficult decisions around monetization and development direction, this felt like a trust issue as much as a quality one.
The fact that the trailer was tied to a major expansion announcement at RuneFest made it sting more. This was supposed to be a hype moment.
The third-party problem studios keep running into
Jagex is far from alone here. Outsourcing marketing materials to external partners is standard practice across the games industry, and the speed at which generative AI tools have been adopted by freelancers and small agencies has outpaced most studios' ability to contractually enforce and verify AI-free deliverables.
The key here is that a no-AI policy only works if there's a reliable mechanism for detecting violations before the content goes live. Reviewing a finished trailer for AI artifacts requires someone on the team who knows what to look for, and the time to actually look. Sween's promise to overhaul review processes suggests Jagex knows this. Whether the overhaul goes deep enough to catch the next case is a different question.
For players who want to keep up with everything happening in the game while this situation develops, the Old School RuneScape guides collection is regularly updated with the latest content and game knowledge.
What comes next for the expansion
The Hoard of Dragons expansion and Dragon Slayer II quest are still on track for 2027, and Jagex has not indicated any changes to the content itself. The trailer controversy is a marketing and trust issue, not a development one. A replacement trailer, presumably one produced and reviewed with more scrutiny, will likely surface before the expansion launches.
For now, Jagex is in the familiar position of doing damage control after a public stumble. The studio's core anti-AI stance remains intact on paper. Turning that stance into something players can actually verify in practice is the harder work ahead. If you want to stay across all the latest gaming news and coverage beyond RuneScape, the broader gaming guides hub has you covered.
