Anthropic tightens Claude Code policy to block video game cloning
Anthropic updated Claude Code's system prompt and usage policy to stop the AI tool from being used to recreate existing video games, citing IP infringement concerns.
Summary
The Verge reported on November 2, 2026 that Anthropic has updated the system prompt of Claude Code so that the tool avoids re-creating existing video games. The report credits Tom's Hardware with first covering the change and says it comes while retro gaming is being flooded with AI-made decompilations, recompilations and ports.
According to The Verge, a user on X posted a screenshot the previous week that allegedly showed two new sentences in the prompt. They reportedly direct the model toward original games, games within a genre and games the user builds with personal designs and assets, while ruling out a recreation of one particular existing title, even where the request calls it original. The Verge says Anthropic's Addy Osmani did not confirm that exact wording in a reply.
Osmani did say the company added two sentences to the Claude Code prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer the model away from recreating another party's specific game, citing the company's usage policy against using Claude to infringe intellectual property. He said the aim is for original titles, genre titles and projects built on a person's own designs and assets to continue to work.
Osmani added that Anthropic will keep iterating to strike the right balance, and invited users whose own projects are declined by Claude to send them to him. The Verge says it has asked Anthropic whether other Claude system prompts have been or will be updated.