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DarioSamo, a software developer and member of the modder group behind the unofficial PC version Banjo: Recompiled released earlier this year, has argued that claims about generative AI speeding up PC ports of classic games are false or misguided.
Addressing static recompilation, which automatically converts game code to behave on another platform, DarioSamo stated that creating a barebones recompilation was always fast and that generative AI provides no actual speedup for the time-consuming process of polish and sustainable public release.
Highlighting an example involving Donkey Kong 64, DarioSamo noted that the DK64 Rekongpiled team achieved a very good state quickly because of deep familiarity, whereas an AI-based effort stalled due to a lack of that knowledge.
DarioSamo also criticized the use of Large Language Models in decompilation, explaining that they brute-force results matching the original ROM while yielding code that remains unreadable to humans and LLMs alike, which ultimately undermines the core objective of documenting and understanding how games were originally made.
