It is important to me that my games are AI-free, and if the engine I use includes AI code, the end product includes AI code.

So I am wondering how you can actually make truly AI-free games in 2026, short of using a tech stack from 2022.

https://noai.starlightnet.work/list.html only knows of two game engines that have clear anti-AI stances. Those are Löve2D (Lua) and Bevy (Rust). The latter is, by admission of their devs, not production-ready.

Meanwhile, the list of open-source tools that are known to include AI code at https://codeberg.org/small-hack/open-slopware is very depressing. There's a couple programming languages that are right out of the question because they themselves are AI-encumbered (though you could argue that these do not AI-encumber code written with them if the AI contributions are included in the compiler), like Typescript, Python and Kotlin. Our open-source darling, Godot, has been accepting AI contributions for a while although those are "discouraged" in the contribution guidelines. Most open-source game engines exist in an "in-between state" where they have no known AI contributions but do not have a policy against AI contributions either, so it is unclear if they already have undeclared AI code or will start fully embracing "vibe coding" next week.

So my question is, are you aware of any other game engines that are AI-unencumbered? If you want to make AI-unencumbered games, what is your approach at the moment?

Same as always was. I write games using existing middleware, and no direct engine use.

My latest project uses: GLFW, OpenGL, glad, Open Dynamics Engine, Lua (for scripting), FreeType, Vorbis, PortAudio, stb_image, minicoro, komihash, ENet.

What limits my games is not really the programming part; it’s the fact I work alone, am not an artist and have another programming job.

EDIT: Hmm, maybe I can propose adding k4 to that Starlight list

Pure C + SDL2

Makes one wonder why this is so.

One would  expect a more careful approach by IT people. Like this

https://xkcd.com/2030/

My opinion would be, that copying code and automatisms are not as frowned upon by coders as a tool, as tracing would be by visual artists. So using ai is more accepted. But I am rather sure, they frown upon so called vibe coding.

Maybe asking for an ai free product helps, to show them the demand.

At least with Linux, you don't have Copilot making its way into your creations. :-)

Honestly, if you want truly AI free in 2026, you’ll probably have to define your own threshold first because avoiding every possible AI contribution in the toolchain feels nearly impossible now. I’d focus more on keeping your actual game assets/code huma made and being transparent about it.

idk but for pure code i use Stride community toolkit it gives a code only interface of the stride game engine and i use godot for more big games projects it's not about tools it's about the developer, while unity do integrate ai in there engine it's optional, i would still prefer using foss software because it tends to be more ai free.