AI game mashup videos on social media spark debate and backlash among players and modders

A number of modders and players have been sharing their concern at the recent trend of AI-powered ‘mashup’ game videos being shared on social media.

The trend reportedly sees modders decompiling two games using the Claude Opus 5.5 AI tool, then running both games at the same time.

The mod will then pull elements from one game and overlay them on top of another, making it appear like a character from one game is performing an action in another game.

Although the effect appears to essentially be an elaborate version of a green screen trick – the characters from Game A are never actually in Game B, they’re just placed on top of it – actions in each game can seemingly be triggered to work together, so that when you fire a bow in Minecraft it results in Steve seemingly firing a bow in Elden Ring.

Numerous ‘mash-up’ videos have been posted on social media in the past few days, including the following scenarios:

• Minecraft in Elden Ring
• Skate 3 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Escape from Tarkov in Skyrim
• Spider-Man as an Escape from Tarkov character in Skyrim
• Minecraft in Skyrim
• Portal in Call of Duty: Zombies
• Super Mario 64 in Dark Souls
• Spider-Man in Batman: Arkham Knight

Response to the videos has been mixed – while some have been entertained by the unlikely crossovers created in the mashups, and others have been impressed at what the technology is capable of, others believe the practice is pointless at best and damaging to the future of modding at worst.

Some believe that the increasing use of AI to create mods and generate code may initially lead to impressive-looking projects, but can be problematic because AI tools can use shortcuts which may create problems further down the line, and the ‘developers’ using those AI tools won’t necessarily understand the code being generated.

Modders say they may stop entirely if this “jingling keys bullshit” becomes the norm

Kingdom Hearts modder Discount Mods stated on X that they were tempted to stop making mods entirely if the community was about to fill up with low-quality AI mods.

“Dude, I’m really disappointed,” they wrote. “If this becomes the permanent state of modding, this may be my last project. I don’t wanna be involved in an AI slop factory.”

Developer Kran also posted on X that while they actually do use AI tools to help them when they work on mods, they strongly dislike these ‘mashups’ because the creator makes no creative input beyond choosing two games to put together.

“I mod games and I’m not shy about the fact that I use AI to do it,” they wrote. “I hate this bullshit ‘trend’. Pure slop, there’s nothing creative about this at all. AI has a lot of potential in the modding scene, but the shit that’s getting the clicks is this jingling keys bullshit.”

AI has become the source of much heated debate in recent times, covering all aspects of game development from the use of generative AI to create artwork and assets, to the use of AI tools to automate coding or other processes.

The ‘decomp’ and ‘recomp’ community, which has been working on turning console games into native PC ports, has also been divided over the slew of new recomps arriving, in which the game’s code has been extracted using AI.

Recently ‘DarioSamo’, the lead developer of a Banjo-Kazooie PC port distanced themselves from a newly released Banjo-Tooie port, stating that it was made by taking their tools and applying AI to it, and was nothing to do with their team.

“We have not, do not and will not use AI to ever work on these projects,” DarioSamo stated. “We’ve already made it public for quite a long time we’re interested in doing Tooie at some point. The game requires a lot of love and care to do a proper port.

“We’re not interested in engaging a race to the bottom and will take the time that is necessary to deliver a polished version. Using the extensive amount of human research we’ve done for the framework, the renderer and the games and throwing AI at it is very disrespectful.”