Anthropic blocks Claude Code from cloning existing games

Anthropic has introduced restrictions intended to stop its Claude Code coding assistant from recreating existing video games. Addy Osmani, an Anthropic employee, confirmed on X that two sentences in the system prompt for Opus 5.5 prevent the tool from cloning other people’s games. He said using Claude to infringe intellectual property violates the company’s usage policy.

The rule has been active for several days and can apply even when a copied game is renamed or presented as original. Users may still create their own games, genre-based projects and works using custom assets, although some developers have reported difficulties with original projects as well.

The change follows a surge in AI-generated cloning projects. Users have used Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra to produce hundreds of unofficial browser ports of titles including Halo and GTA Vice City. Reverse Engineer Anything combines AI agents with reverse engineering to convert native binaries into readable pseudocode. Adobe’s Creative Cloud applications and the PlayStation 5 have also become targets. Osmani said Anthropic will continue adjusting the rules.