Claude Code now declines to recreate a specific existing game
Anthropic has added two sentences to Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5 that steer it away from rebuilding someone else's specific game. Original games, genre games and games built from your own designs and assets are meant to keep working, and the Claude Code team is asking for reports when one of those gets refused.
What changed
Addy Osmani, who works on Claude Code at Anthropic, wrote on October 30 that the team added two sentences to Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else's specific game, because using Claude to infringe IP breaks Anthropic's usage policy.
The wording users found in their sessions reads: "Do build original games, games in a genre, and games from the user's own designs and assets. Don't build a recreation of a specific existing game, even if it is renamed or called original." An X user posted it with the server flag it arrives under, tengu_heron_brook, and a start date of about October 27. It's delivered from Anthropic's servers rather than shipped in a release, and the changelog for 2.1.314 to 2.1.317 doesn't mention it.
What still works
| Request | Per Anthropic |
|---|---|
| An original game you describe | Meant to work |
| A game in a genre (a platformer, a roguelike, a match-3) | Meant to work |
| A game from your own design document and assets | Meant to work |
| A named existing game, rebuilt, even under a new name | Declined |
Where it misfires
A developer who builds digital versions of board wargames on commission, for clients who own those games, opened issue #106167 on October 30 after sessions began refusing that work. The issue asks for three things: a rule aimed at copied code, art and text rather than at games as a category, a way for professionals to show they hold the rights, and changelog entries for instructions of this kind. It was still open on November 3. Other commenters there raise public-domain games, abandonware and remakes made with the rights holder's permission.
Osmani's post says the team will keep adjusting the balance, and asks: "if Claude turns down something that's yours, send it my way." Neither he nor the issue mentions a setting that turns the rule off.
What it means for you
- You're building your own game: put your design document and asset list in the repository and point Claude at them, so the request reads as yours from the first message.
- You hold the rights to an existing game: say so in the request. If it's still refused, reply to Osmani's post or add the case to issue #106167 with what you asked and what Claude answered.
- You wanted a clone to learn from: build a game in that genre with your own rules, levels and art instead. You practise the same code, and it sits in the "games in a genre" row.
Try it
I want you to act as a game designer helping me write a one-page brief for an original game. Genre: [genre]. Platform: [web, desktop, mobile]. Session length: [minutes]. The idea in my words: [two or three sentences]. Write: the core loop in one sentence, three mechanics that make it different from the best-known games in this genre, the win and lose conditions, and a first playable version small enough to build in a weekend. Don't borrow names, characters, levels or art direction from any existing game. If one of my ideas is too close to a specific game, say which and suggest a change.
I want you to act as a reviewer checking a game concept for parts lifted from existing games. Below is my design document. List anything that matches a specific existing game closely: names, characters, level layouts, story beats, UI, art direction, sound. For each, say which game and suggest a replacement that keeps the mechanic. Genre conventions shared by many games (double jump, health bars, a tech tree) aren't a problem; leave them out of the list. [paste the design document]
Sources
- Addy Osmani on X, post of October 30, 2026, checked November 3, 2026
- chasmmmmmmmmmmm on X, the rule text and flag, October 30, 2026
- anthropics/claude-code, issue #106167, checked November 3, 2026
- anthropics/claude-code, CHANGELOG.md, checked November 3, 2026