James Pond Legacy: the original creator lays into System 3’s collection and its suspected AI

System 3 unveiled "James Pond Legacy: The Pond is Not Enough", a collection due on Nintendo Switch 2 in October 2026, in the week of 25 August 2026. Its trailer was immediately accused of relying on generative AI: smooth, flat characters, and one hand showing four fingers while the other has five.

In a pinned comment, the publisher denies it. It says the new 3D "Pondverse" characters were built from the original sprites through a "human-led" process combining manual redrawing, 3D rendering, Photoshop clean-up and a final paint-over. Players were not convinced.

The original creator weighs in. Chris Sorrell, programmer, game designer and artist on the three original James Pond games, says he was "in no way consulted or involved with this legacy collection". More bluntly, he adds: "I hope they choke on an AI-generated fishbone." He considers System 3's evidence unconvincing.

The row adds to a string of trailers recently called out for the same reasons in commercial retro gaming, from Earthion to a Manic Miner remake, against a backdrop of growing public distrust of generative AI.

Source: Time Extension