Anthropic's Claude Code now has instructions to refuse recreating a specific existing video game, even if you rename it. Here is what still works and the legal risk.
Asking Claude to "build Grand Theft Auto" is now more likely to get you a no. New instructions found in Claude Code, Anthropic's coding tool, tell the AI not to recreate a specific existing game, even if the user gives it a new name or says it is original.
The instructions are called a system prompt. That is a set of built-in directions that shape how an AI behaves. A user on X spotted the change first, and a member of the Claude Code development team later confirmed it.
The wording is direct. It says to build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user's own designs and assets. It says not to build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original.
Addy Osmani, a former Google Chrome engineer who now works at Anthropic, said the update is meant to steer Claude away from recreating someone else's specific game. His reason: using Claude to infringe intellectual property is against the company's usage policy.
He also said original games, genre games and games built from your own designs and assets are meant to keep working. If Claude turns down something that is yours, he asked people to send it his way.
Getting AI to rebuild games, gadgets and other products has been a popular trend in recent weeks. Projects on GitHub, a site where developers share code, offer detailed instructions to help AI tools recreate existing games. Galleries show results that include Diablo II, Grand Theft Auto 2, The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past and Harvest Moon.
The usual method is to have the AI decompile a game file. That means working backward from the code a console or PC runs to get readable source code. Decompiling old games is not new, but AI has made it much easier and faster. Claude has also reportedly started refusing prompts to hack smart TVs, a popular trick for removing unwanted preinstalled apps.
Reverse-engineering a copyrighted game can cause legal trouble, with or without AI. In 2021, Take-Two, the company behind Grand Theft Auto, sued developers of decompiled mods for Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The case was settled after the mods were pulled.
The reports describe the change in Claude Code only. It is not clear how strictly it will be applied, or how often it will block projects that are legitimately yours. Whether ChatGPT and other AI tools will follow with similar rules has not been reported.
If you use AI to build games or mods, start from original ideas or your own assets, because copying a real game can mean a refusal or legal trouble.
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