Kingdom Hearts fans say its new box art used AI, and it points at a much bigger Disney question
Square Enix quietly swapped the cover for its Switch 2 collection after fans spotted the telltale signs. Disney’s characters were on it, but Disney didn’t make it, and that gap is exactly where the whole AI mess lives right now.
If you want a snapshot of how tangled the AI fight has gotten, look at the box art for a Kingdom Hearts collection nobody can quite agree on.
Fans say Square Enix used AI on the cover. Square Enix quietly changed it without saying a word. And Disney, whose characters are all over it, appears to have had nothing to do with either decision. That’s the whole modern AI knot in one game cover.
What fans actually spotted
The tells were the usual ones, and once you see them you can’t unsee them.
Square Enix revealed the Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] for Switch 2 at the June Nintendo Direct. Fans zoomed in and started finding problems: Donald Duck with five fingers on one hand, which is one too many for a classic Disney character. A background clock tower with gears that don’t make sense. A cathedral melting into nonsense. Warped treads on Sora’s boots.
Image from Vexmyx on X
Those are the fingerprints of generative AI, which still tends to mangle hands, repeating patterns, and background architecture. So the accusations flew fast.
The nuance most headlines skipped
Here’s where it gets more complicated than “they got caught,” and it’s worth being fair about.
Artists who actually study the series’ style took a closer look and landed somewhere more specific. DekuDraws, known for emulating series creator Tetsuya Nomura‘s work, argued the base illustration is “undeniably Nomura’s.” The theory, echoed by other artists, is that the real art is genuinely hand-drawn, but it was run through AI to separate and rearrange the characters for an alternate box-art layout, and that’s what introduced the warping.
If that’s right, this isn’t a machine inventing art from scratch. It’s AI used as a shortcut to reshuffle a real artist’s work, which is its own kind of problem but a different one. Square Enix never said which, because Square Enix never commented at all.
Square Enix said nothing and just swapped it
The response tells you as much as the art did.
Rather than explain, Square Enix quietly pushed a different version of the cover to retailers, one that hides the worst tells, including five-fingered Donald. As of now the company hasn’t acknowledged the accusations, confirmed AI was used, or denied it. The new art was simply slipped into store listings, and even that rollout was patchy, with the original still live in some shops.
It’s worth being clear: no one outside Square Enix has confirmed AI was used. These remain fan accusations, strong ones with a quiet art-swap that sure looks like a response, but accusations all the same.
Where Disney actually fits, which isn’t where you’d think
Here’s the part that reframes the whole thing. The characters are Disney’s. The decision wasn’t.
Square Enix makes Kingdom Hearts and licenses Disney’s characters to do it. There’s no indication Disney drew this art, approved it, or had any hand in whatever AI process is being alleged. So while it’s a Disney-character controversy, it isn’t a Disney decision, and pinning it on the Mouse would be wrong.
But it does land on Disney’s doorstep, because Disney is in the middle of its own very public, very contradictory dance with AI.
Disney is embracing AI and suing over it at the same time
This is the real story under the box art, and it’s genuinely strange.
In December 2025, Disney signed a landmark deal with OpenAI, reportedly including a $1 billion stake, becoming the first major studio to license its characters for AI. Starting this year, fans can use OpenAI’s Sora to generate short videos from more than 200 Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars characters, though notably the deal blocks actor voices and likenesses.
At the same time, Disney is fighting AI on other fronts. It’s suing the AI image company Midjourney for using its characters without permission. It sent Google a cease-and-desist that got AI-generated Disney videos pulled from YouTube. So Disney’s actual position isn’t “yes to AI” or “no to AI.” It’s “yes to AI we license and control, lawsuits for everyone else.”
That’s the lens the Kingdom Hearts flap really belongs in. Disney has decided AI is coming either way, and the plan is to own the on-ramp, set the terms, and sue anyone who skips the toll booth.
What it means going forward
So the box art is a small thing pointing at a big one.
The takeaway isn’t that one game cover looked off. It’s that even a licensed, official, Disney-character product can now ship with AI fingerprints on it and a publisher that won’t say yes or no, while Disney itself simultaneously cashes AI checks and files AI lawsuits.
Where that line ends up isn’t going to be decided by a box art swap. It’s going to be decided by which of Disney’s two AI strategies, the embrace or the lawsuit, wins out as the technology gets harder to spot.
For more news, views, and reviews on all things Disney and theme parks, visit Pirates and Princesses.
Hat Tips:
Nintendo Everything and Kotaku (June 2026), verified for the box art swap, the specific AI tells (five-fingered Donald, warped gears and architecture), and the DekuDraws and Kahene artist analyses arguing the base art is Nomura’s
GamesRadar and The Gamer (June 2026), verified for the original accusations, Square Enix not commenting, and the partial retailer rollout of the replacement art
OpenAI and Kiplinger (December 2025), verified for the Disney–OpenAI Sora licensing deal, the 200-plus characters, and the exclusion of talent voices and likenesses
TechCrunch and AInvest (2025–2026), verified for Disney’s reported $1 billion OpenAI stake, its Midjourney lawsuit, and the Google cease-and-desist over AI Disney videos on YouTube