AI news · Claude Code · game clones
Claude Code now declines to rebuild other people’s games
Anthropic’s Addy Osmani confirms that Claude Code on Opus 5.5 now carries a two-sentence instruction against copying someone else’s specific game.
Anthropic has changed the instructions that steer Claude Code, its coding assistant, so that it turns down requests to recreate a particular existing video game. A screenshot posted on X last week appeared to show two new sentences in the tool’s system prompt (the standing instructions it reads before every request), and Anthropic’s Addy Osmani, without confirming that wording, said in a reply on 30 October 2026 that the prompt had changed, Tom’s Hardware reported. He said the lines were added on Opus 5.5 because “using Claude to infringe IP is against our usage policy”.
He invited anyone whose own project Claude turns down to send it to him, and said new games, genre games and games made from a user’s own art and designs should still work. The Verge notes that AI-made copies of old games, rebuilt from their code or moved to new machines, now swamp the retro gaming scene.
Developers are also reporting that Opus 5.5 inside Claude Code refuses some reverse-engineering requests, Tom’s Hardware says, including a Reddit user who says their account was suspended and later reinstated. Tom’s Hardware notes that Anthropic runs a Cyber Verification Program that gives only approved entities its frontier models’ full cybersecurity capabilities.
The rule Osmani cites is the Usage Policy, the same document behind every row for Claude in our rights sheet: Free, Pro, Max, Ultra and Team are all marked conditional for paid ads because of it (checked 24 October 2026).
The new sentences only steer Claude Code on Opus 5.5, while the Usage Policy covers every plan, so a brand that asks any Claude product to copy another company’s game for an ad is breaking the same rule whether or not the tool stops it.
Sources
- The Verge: Anthropic clamps down on Claude’s AI video game clones. Checked
- Tom's Hardware: Anthropic confirms new Claude Code limits to prevent game cloning. Checked
Alexandre S.
Alexandre S. is a creative ad strategist and copywriter with ten years' experience in digital marketing across multiple channels.
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