There’s currently a free-for-all when it comes to vibe coding video game slop, including knock-offs and decompilations of existing games, and not every company is okay with it. Activision and Betheda, both owned by Microsoft, recently took action against two different projects.
The first was called Fallout: New York. A clip shared by ChrisFirst on X showed an attempt to recreate the open world shooter in the big apple in a form that would be playable in people’s browsers. It was coded with Claude Opus 5.5 and certainly looked like Fallout out a glance.
“Quests. Dialogue trees. V.A.T.S. A working Pip-Boy. Zero texture files. Zero sound files,” ChrisFirst wrote. “Every building, weapon, face and sound is generated by code.”
Obsidian is so over. pic.twitter.com/8RXrDLFXgF
— Retro space RPG Space Wreck 🇱🇻🇺🇦 (@pahrislv) September 29, 2026
The project didn’t last long, however. The initial post, shared on September 28, racked up over 3.5 million views. But just days later, on October 1, ChrisFirst confirmed he was abandoning the project after receiving an alleged cease and desist from Bethesda for infringing on its IP. “Hey, Bethesda Studios how about you make a Fallout game instead so I don’t have to?” he wrote alongside a screencap of the legal threat. “Sorry to everyone who enjoyed the game! But the suits got involved and the fun is over.”
Hey, @BethesdaStudios how about you make a Fallout game instead so I don’t have to?😂
Sorry to everyone who enjoyed the game! But the suits got involved and the fun is over. https://t.co/knvSvxv7OH pic.twitter.com/11A7VaDp6x
— CHRIS FIRST (@chrisfirst) October 1, 2026
Am AI vibe coded Call of Duty project also caught the attention of gaming lawyers this week. Maurice Heumann shared on X on September 30 that he was using genAI to decompile the source code for the original Modern Warfare 2 on PC. “With currently 17 agents working in parallel, we’re making progress at an incredible pace,” he wrote. “The game is fully playable now and almost all visible bugs are gone. Only a few are left. I even managed to get my first nuke.”
MW2 decompilation is nearing its end.
With currently 17 agents working in parallel, we’re making progress at an incredible pace.
The game is fully playable now and almost all visible bugs are gone. Only a few are left.
I even managed to get my first nuke ☢️😂 pic.twitter.com/vgfQdP93Gt
— Maurice Heumann (@momo5502) September 30, 2026
Activision responded by nuking the footage he’d shared in the post. an apparent clip of the Kill Streak was instead replaced with a warning: “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.” A link to the site allegedly hosting the code can no longer be reached either. Maurice Heumann’s other recent tweets complain about his AI agents deleting all of his stuff. “The fuckers did it again,” he posted this weekend.
It’s unclear how long this whack-a-mole approach can last when vibe coded projects that seemingly infringe on famous gaming IP go viral every other day. The big game publishers have yet mount a legal battle against the AI companies the way some in Hollywood have. “Going after the little guys instead of the technology, this is Napster and music industry 2.0, we’re already saw how this plays out, we win they lose,” wrote one person in response to the latest takedowns.
