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Programmers are using AI to resurrect some of the most popular video games of all time and are offering them for free online as gaming giants scramble to shut down the unauthorized projects.
The world of “reclaimed games” — where fans reverse-engineer their favorite games by combing through and copying their codes — has been booming thanks to Claude Opus 5.5 and ChatGPT’s Astra.
While decompiling and recomposing code can take a person years to complete, these AI models can do so in just a matter of days.
Games that have been put online this way include: Halo: Combat Evolved; GTA: Vice City; GTA: San Andreas; Call of Duty: Black Ops; Skate 3; The Simpsons: Hit & Run, Super Mario 64 and many more.
OpenCE is a revamped version of Halo: Combat Evolved that allows you to play the beloved 2001 game with updated graphics and expanded capabilities for free.
Some programmers have pushed the trend into stranger territory. One developer created a browser-based Halo-stylized recreation of Jeffrey Epstein’s Little Saint James island, complete with a nautical-themed temple.
AI researcher Luckey Faraday used OpenAI’s GPT Astra model to code a browser-playable version of Call of Duty, which he posted on X.
One version Faraday released was Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which was programmed to look like Minecraft and could be played in a browser.
X briefly suspended his account after several weeks of putting out the games, telling him it had received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) demand, Faraday wrote on social media.
He then pulled down multiple sites where Call of Duty games he recreated were posted before receiving other DMCA orders.
“I took the games down just in case,” Farady told The Post.
Other versions of reclaimed Call of Duty games are still available online.
The projects raise fresh questions about how AI could make it easier for programmers to reproduce copyrighted games — and how quickly game publishers will move to stop them. Video game companies have a history of taking down some fan-developed games, but some exist in a legal gray zone.
Nintendo issued waves of DMCA takedown notices in 2020 after fans recreated Super Mario 64 and made it available for free. In 2021, Take-Two interactive issued DMCAs for recompiled version of Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City.
XBox, Rockstar Games, Microsoft, and Nintendo did not respond to requests for comment.