// KOTAKU — GAMING
Zelda and Banjo Recompiled Devs Go To War With AI Vibe-Coded ‘Slopcomps’
AIBanjo-KazooieDecompiledPCThe Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
We’ve seen a bunch of unofficial PC ports of Nintendo 64 classics over the last few years thanks to the fan-made N64: Recompiled tool which helps enthusiasts reverse-engineer the code base of original games for modern hardware. But now the scene is facing a wave of new AI vibe-coded decompilations, and many are furious about it.
A project called Banjo-Tooie Recompiled was shared online last week and drew ire for corrupting human-based PC porting efforts with AI-generated code. It was shared on the YouTube channel Video Game Esoterica (via VGC), which didn’t initially make it clear that the effort involved vibe coding.
Argentinian software developer DarioSamo, who worked on the previous human-led unofficial port of the first Banjo game, called out the channel for not disclosing that fact and attempted to distinguish his work from the Banjo-Tooie Recompiled project.
Apparently VGE hid the comment I left under his video.
Here it is for anyone who wants to see it, as it seems to clearly bother him that someone wants to hold him even slightly responsible for the major damage he's been doing and continues to do this scene.
— Darío (@dariosamo.bsky.social) 2026-10-02T01:33:14.466Z
“The Banjo-Tooie Recompilation is NOT associated with us,” he wrote on October 1. “It is entirely AI-generated. Both Zelda: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled have very clear No AI stances. We have not, do not and will not use AI to ever work on these projects.”
He continued, “We’re not interested in engaging a race to the bottom and will take the time that is necessary to deliver a polished version of the game. Using the extensive amount of human research we’ve done for the framework, the renderer and the games themselves and throwing AI at it is just disrespectful.”
DarioSamo pointed out that his group had already made clear its intentions to produce a port of Banjo-Tooie at some point without using AI. He also slammed the competing project over on the Decomps subreddit, calling on Banjo-Tooie Recompiled to be renamed.