Anthropic restricts Claude AI from cloning video games and reverse-engineering

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has paved its way into the gaming industry, bringing benefits across game development, character design, storytelling, player experiences, and gameplay mechanics. The technology has also made it easier for people to recreate, modify, and remix video games. However, this has raised concerns about copyright, as game publishers and developers are concerned that it could violate their intellectual property rights.

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Cloning video games and reverse engineering have become a major issue, and companies have started to issue copyright complaints and takedown notices against AI-generated game recreations. Some independent game developers are reportedly facing extortion attempts. Scammers are also threatening to use AI to clone unfinished game demos and turn them into complete games before the original developers can launch their products.

What’s Anthropic doing to stop cloning video games?

Amid these challenges, Anthropic's Claude Code and Opus 5.5 models are reportedly refusing to help users reverse-engineer video games, according to a Tom’s Hardware report. Many developers have complained that Claude is also refusing to help with ordinary, non-malicious reverse-engineering tasks that have legitimate use. Reverse engineering is a widely used technique that can be used to understand how software works, troubleshoot compatibility issues, or analyse code for security purposes. However, restrictions have raised wider concern over routine technical work.

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Reportedly, the restriction is said to be linked to a new instruction given to the AI model. A user on X, Chasm, shared what they claim is the new instruction given to Claude; the model is instructed not to recreate an existing game, even if the user changes its name or claims that the recreation is an original project. However, it has not been officially confirmed by Anthropic.

Anthropic is not the only AI company taking action against users who attempt to reverse-engineer or recreate existing software. OpenAI has also reportedly taken action against a user for a similar activity. OpenAI recently deactivated the account of a user who was trying to modify their television's software.