Godot Engine, Tool Behind Slay the Spire 2, Bans AI-Written Code Submissions
The Godot Foundation has confirmed it will rewrite its contribution rules to stop accepting AI-authored code, autonomous AI-agent pull requests and AI-generated text in contributor discussions on the free, open-source engine that powers Slay the Spire 2 and Road to Vostok. The foundation said the problem has been “compounded by the recent increase in AI-generated contributions, both by AI agents and by humans submitting AI-generated code.”
The changes, detailed in an official blog post published on the engine’s website, mark one of the most explicit stances any major open-source software project has taken against generative AI in its codebase. Godot’s move was independently reported by PC Gamer, Kotaku and Game Developer, all of which confirmed the same core policy details directly from the foundation’s announcement.
Why Godot’s Maintainers Say They Can No Longer Cope
Godot’s leadership frames the ban as a response to a reviewer bottleneck that has been building for years and was tipped over by cheap, AI-assisted contributions. The foundation explained that it has “become overwhelmed by the large number of code contributions,” and while a growing backlog partly reflects healthy interest in the project, “a large part of the backlog comes from the fact that the number of qualified reviewers is small, reviewing PRs is demanding, and we can’t keep up with everything coming in,” a problem “compounded by the recent increase in AI-generated contributions.”
Kotaku reported that Godot’s GitHub repository currently has over 5,000 unresolved pull requests, a backlog that lead developer Rémi Verschelde had already flagged as a burnout risk. Back in February, according to Kotaku, Verschelde wrote on Bluesky that “AI slop [pull requests] are becoming increasingly draining and demoralizing for #Godot maintainers.”
What Still Counts as Acceptable AI Assistance
The new rules are not a blanket AI ban. Godot’s blog post states that contributors who use AI in some capacity to author code must disclose it in the PR discussion, and that when maintainers volunteer their time to review an issue, PR or proposal, “they do not want to talk to a machine,” calling it “a basic principle of respect,” while machine translations remain acceptable if the underlying text was human-written.
Game Developer’s reporting narrowed down exactly where the line sits: the foundation wants all code “human authored,” with AI limited to “menial things,” including code completion, regex, or find and replace, while autonomous agent use or “vibe coding” and AI-generated text in human-to-human communication are being banned outright. PC Gamer’s coverage added that “AI cannot take responsibility, and we can’t trust heavy users of AI to understand their code enough to fix it,” the foundation said, underscoring that accountability, not just code quality, is the central worry.
New Contributors Face a Three-PR Threshold Before Bigger Submissions
Alongside the AI restrictions, Godot is tightening how newcomers can contribute at all. The official blog confirms the foundation will amend its contributing policy to include a prohibition on new features or significant re-factoring from new contributors without explicit permission from maintainers, considering anyone with three or fewer merged pull requests a “new contributor.” The stated goal is to make sure newcomers “take the time to learn the codebase and engage with maintainers to build trust” through smaller bug fixes and documentation work before tackling larger changes.
It’s already established practice that no code merges without a human sign-off, and the foundation is simply spelling that out more clearly going forward. Kotaku’s reporting notes that the policy also requires that communication in messages, such as descriptions of GitHub issues or pull requests, be written by humans, “because they do not want to talk to a machine,” which it calls “a basic principle of respect.”
Godot’s Growing Commercial Profile Raises the Stakes
The timing matters because Godot’s real-world footprint has expanded rapidly since Unity’s runtime-fee controversy pushed developers toward free alternatives. PC Gamer noted that the engine “powers games like Slay the Spire 2 and The Case of the Golden Idol,” both commercial hits that have raised Godot’s profile well beyond its hobbyist roots. Mega Crit, the Seattle studio behind Slay the Spire 2, is among the engine’s largest financial backers, alongside Terraria developer Re-Logic, giving the project a direct stake in keeping its codebase stable and its volunteer reviewers from burning out.
For the wider community of indie developers who lean on Godot’s free MIT-licensed tooling — including a growing pool of small studios across Australia and New Zealand drawn to the engine after Unity’s pricing backlash — the policy is a signal that quality control, not raw contribution volume, is now the priority. Godot has not said when the amended policy text will formally go live, only that enforcement of existing rules against vibe-coded and agent-submitted PRs continues in the meantime.
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