Claude Code 2.1.314 added an instruction not to recreate existing games
Since version 2.1.314, Claude Code ships two sentences telling the model to build original games but not a copy of a specific existing one. Anthropic says the rule applies with Opus 5.5 and follows from its usage policy on intellectual property. Some developers report that work they hold the rights to is being refused.
Claude Code, Anthropic's coding agent, has carried an instruction against copying video games since version 2.1.314, released on October 30, 2026. The instruction tells the model to build original games, games in a genre and games from the user's own designs and assets. It also tells the model not to build a recreation of a specific existing game, even one that is renamed or called original. The two sentences appear in the program files of versions 2.1.314 and 2.1.316 published on npm, and not in version 2.1.312.
What Anthropic says the rule is for
Addy Osmani, a software engineer at Anthropic, confirmed the change on October 30, 2026, in a post on X quoted by Ars Technica. He wrote that the company added two sentences to Claude Code's prompt on Opus 5.5 to steer it away from recreating someone else's specific game. The reason he gave is that using Claude to infringe intellectual property is against Anthropic's usage policy.
The usage policy does list infringing, misappropriating or violating a third party's intellectual property rights among prohibited uses. Osmani added that original games, genre games and games built from a user's own designs and assets are meant to keep working, and that the company will keep adjusting where the line sits.
The release notes for version 2.1.314 do not mention the instruction. The program files also do not show whether it is sent with every model or only with Opus 5.5, so the link to that model rests on Anthropic's statement alone.
Refusals that developers report
Issue reports in Claude Code's GitHub repository show where the line is hard to draw. In one report, filed on October 30, 2026, a company that builds digital versions of board wargames on commission says Opus 5.5 sessions now refuse work they used to do. The company says its clients own the games, and it asks Anthropic to narrow the instruction to actual copying of code, art or text and to record changes like this in the release notes.
The rule is an instruction in the prompt, not a check against a list of titles, so the model itself judges what counts as a recreation of a specific game. This suggests that borderline projects, such as a port of a game the client owns or a mix of two well-known games, will sometimes be refused.
„Don't build a recreation of a specific existing game“
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