AI Accelerates Game Decompilation: Enabling Native Ports and High-FPS Enhancements Amid Copyright Concerns

Introduction

I'm going to preface this post by saying I generally don't like AI. What an original take, I know. I hate that the internet is full of slop and bots, I hate that it's used as justification to fire hundreds of thousands of workers, I hate that the AI industry is making hardware inaccessible for consumers, I hate that it's being shoved into everything, and so forth. I like to do everything by my hand and take pride in my work.

That said, every now and then there's AI news that becomes impossible to ignore or act like it doesn't matter. This is especially one of those times. AI is now able to very quickly decompile video games and software, allowing them to easily get modified and enhanced and recompiled to all sorts of different systems.

And honestly? I have to admit - it's very cool. So many old, abandoned games are getting native ports to other platforms, enhanced with high FPS and running at dynamic native resolutions, with modding support. These type of enhancements usually aren't possible through an emulator.

Game Decompilations???

Decompiling games and software is the process of reverse-engineering it from a compiled version back to source code. Once decompiled, you can practically do anything you want to that code then recompile it back to an executable that runs on your computer. Or mobile phone. Or smart fridge, really.

Decompiling old games isn't a new trend. The process of picking apart an old game and re-writing the code was doable by hand, but it was so complicated and time-consuming that it took years to decompile a game. The only ones that ever make it to the finish lines are through massive community efforts. Notable decompilations tirelessly made by hand are OpenGOAL (Jak and Daxter games) and Ship of Harkinian (Zelda Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask). These developers are legends.

Thanks to the games being decompiled, modding all these games is now possible, and there are some really fun ones. Here's Jak and Daxter but you play as Gordon from Half Life. The mod can be found here, and it was not made with AI.

Newer AI models and workflows are now able to decompile games in a matter of days, or maybe less. The code isn't nearly as clean as doing it by hand, but it works. Some ports are a mess made by people who have no idea what they're doing, but most ports are undeniably impressive and stable.

Some Examples

A great example of this being used for good is IsaacRecomp, which ports The Binding of Isaac in C++! No, not the remake. This is for the original Flash version made in 2011. Flash Isaac ran at a locked 30FPS and a low, blurry resolution. It was also a bit unstable because you're trying to run Adobe Flash in 2026. But now... Look at this.

The game now runs at a native 1440p, smoothly interpolated to 165FPS! If you've ever played Flash Isaac, you can immediately tell how beautiful that looks compared to the original. And it was all made automatically. In a few days. By an AI. That's insane.

There are hundreds of these projects now, with more coming every day. From a game preservation standpoint, it's incredible how we can take old janky experiences and get them to play on modern systems while also modernizing them. You can absolutely have your opinions regarding AI, but you have to admit this is cool.

Another one I like is Colin McRae Rally 2.0, a very old game that also barely ran on modern systems. Or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, now running at any aspect ratio with dynamic zooming in and out. There's a Metroid Prime port. There's Ratchet and Clank which should be finished soon. There are too many more to mention and I'm struggling to keep track of them all.

The Scary Part

Most people already realized the scary part by now. If AI can decompile games and software, then the entiry tech industry is about to explode. Anybody can decompile other software and use it any way they'd like, and nobody can stop them. Companies can steal from competitors. Your paid game or app can be open-sourced against your will. This isn't exclusive to old video games, we can apply this to any software.

Decompiling software is completely legal, and even if it won't be - it doesn't matter. You can't prove it's stolen code. I can make 1 copies of other things and say it's totally original, then publish it online. Someone made a fantastic joke website about how you can copy code with AI and claim it's made in a clean room, so technically you're not under any licensing agreements.

That's scary. The implications of this haven't been fully realized by people yet, but it's only a matter of time before alarms start ringing. I expect that in the next few months, we'll see some major application get decompiled and shared that will cause a serious response from companies.

Maybe open source licenses are completely unenforceable now. Maybe critical software and hardware can be easily hacked into now, and we haven't realized just how bad it is yet. Maybe everything will have more invasive DRM on it soon. Who knows. We're about to find out in the next few months.

But Isn't This Also Awesome?

This is still a big win for consumers, though. Old abandoned games and software can be ported and polished for modern systems! I can't help but be giddy when seeing something like Skate 3 and Black Ops Zombies running on your browser. We live in weird times.

I wasn't kidding, here's Black Ops 1 Zombies running on my browser (at a bad framerate, but still)

This is also a big win for preservation. Old games can be ported, modified, enhanced, and made much more easily accessible than before. Shouldn't that be celebrated more?

There's a project in development called AnyPS5 which will allow you to automatically port any PS5 game to your PC, making them fully playable. This isn't hypothetical vaporware, some PS5 games have already been ported to PC such as Animal Well! This also isn't an emulator, it's more of a compatibility layer similar to Proton (which allows you to play Windows games on Linux).

With console makers going all in on digital and games becoming entirely unplayable due to servers shutting down, this is fantastic news. We could own software we bought regardless of what the company thinks.

I expect modding become way easier too since AI can find ways to hook into a game's code. You might've already seen some sloppy mods that combine two games together. Those are dumb, but they make a point that AI could potentially create modding frameworks for previously unmoddable games. That's neat.

I know. AI still sucks, it's still causing a lot of issues in the world, and it's still accelerating us to a future that is too uncertain. But this is one of the positives of having such a technology, and I hope instead of random internet users attacking those using AI for decompilation and blindly hating these projects, we can just accept the win and play that old game you like at 4K 240FPS.