At first glance, nothing seems that off about the Kingdom Hearts Collection [I~III] box art for the Switch 2 version of the game. It features Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and several versions of Sora in nods to each of the three existing numbered entries. But fans who looked a little more closely quickly discovered apparent signs of generative AI. A debate ensued about whether the image was mostly slop or just tweaked by the controversial tech. It’s possible we now have an answer.
The issue began with Donald Duck’s hands. His left hand has five fingers, which is normally the right amount, but not for a Disney character. Fans later noticed other unusual artifacts in the key art for the new collection. Various visual details, including gears on a clock tower in the background, the mesh of Donald’s zipper, and treads on the bottom of one of Sora’s boots, all seemed to indicate the sloppy work of AI trying to fudge things.
So regarding the claims that Nomura used A.I to create this artwork, that is not what happened. It seems far more likely that the original artwork was drawn entirely by Nomura, but the version used for box art or promotional material was later upscaled using AI
You can see… pic.twitter.com/JhYhCsvppi
— Dengo – عبدالله (@DENGOJIN) June 9, 2026
This led to concerns that the entire image might have been mostly AI-generated, or a composite of a bunch of individual parts that were each AI-generated. Some fans noticed that Donald essentially looks like an illustrated version of one of his character’s 3D model renders from the game. Was AI being used to fake a “hand-drawn” look to the cover art? While fans are primed to expect the worst with respect to genAI these days, especially from companies that claim to be embracing it in some aspects of their work, it was hard to figure out what the hell was actually going on.
Enter online artist DekuDraws who’s known for having a lot of experience studying and emulating Kingdom Hearts designer Tetsuya Nomura’s style. “This is undeniably Nomura’s work!” they wrote on X. “I believe the full illustration was intended to be compiled like this, hence why Donald’s ‘4 finger’ hand is hidden behind Sora. AI was used to separate the cast for alternate box art, same with the settings to give their 3D models a drawn look.”
This is undeniably Nomura’s work! I believe the full illustration was intended to be compiled like this, hence why Donald’s ‘4 finger’ hand is hidden behind Sora.
AI was used to separate the cast for alternate box art, same with the settings to give their 3D models a drawn look pic.twitter.com/piMTeg1LA9
— り乇ズひ り尺ﾑ山丂 (@DekuDraws) June 9, 2026
They continued, “Seeing the rapidly spreading claims of AI use had me take a closer look. As someone who has studied Nomura’s work, this is still him! This ‘new’ style is the one we saw in his Halloween illustration back in Oct. The man is overworked, we’re lucky we even get new art!” It’s a convincing theory that would certainly solve the mystery of what’s going on with this particular key art image, much of which seems to be perfectly fine.
The idea is that while the underlying art was hand-made, generative AI may have been introduced at some later stage when trying to compose different variations of the box art for different markets. It’s still not clear why any of that would have been necessary, if indeed that was what happened. A representative for Square Enix did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Square Enix’s CEO has said he wants the company to be aggressive about trying to leverage genAI, including predictions that it could be used to perform the bulk of the RPG publisher’s QA work. This posturing has all happened while the company has been cutting positions across its North American publishing operation. At Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest earlier this year, one of the company’s localizers even made fun of the mandate to experiment with AI on stage at the event.