You might have noticed a sudden wave of browser ports and recomps over the last month, when, historically, they've taken years to develop. That's because of the recent advancements in AI tools like Claude, which have allowed anyone, regardless of programming background, to reverse engineer software.

Old PS2 games like Resident Evil Outbreak being made playable in a browser, native PC ports of Breath of the Wild, and even PS5 and Switch 2 consoles being jailbroken: Pandora's Box is well and truly open.

Hobbyists with a passion for these games who put in actual effort, with far better results, are understandably frustrated that their work is being drowned out by vibecoded slop. Publishers, meanwhile, have found themselves stuck in an endless game of whack-a-mole trying to stop people from playing Mario Kart World via Google Chrome. And then there's the security threat that easily reverse engineering software has shone a light on, as AI was used to uncover decade-old flaws in PHP within a matter of hours, leaving 70 percent of the internet vulnerable. Governments even pulled public-facing websites to prevent bad-faith actors from seizing control.

Clearly, the pressure is being felt, as Anthropic and OpenAI are now clamping down . " Given how many vibecoded recomps and browser ports relied on these tools, the sudden onslaught of low-effort ports might already be slowing down. However, now that Pandora's Box is open, it can't be closed.

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