Modders are furious as Claude-powered mashup mods flood social media

Longtime mod creators aren’t happy with the latest trend taking over their corner of the internet – the bullshit “trend” of AI-generated, or “vibration-coded,” mods.

As first reported by IGN, the backlash is growing after a number of modders – including some who openly admit to using generative AI to help write their mods – opened up about mashup mods combining completely unrelated games.

“I mod games and I’m not afraid to use AI to do it. I hate this bullshit ‘trend’. Pure stupidity, there’s nothing creative about it,” posted modder kran27_, adding that “the shit that makes you click is this jingling button bullshit.”

Another, discountmodder, added: “If this becomes the permanent state of modding, this may be my last project. I don’t want to be involved in an AI garbage factory.”

What has them so riled up is the huge wave of mods that bring together unrelated games, from World of Warcraft to Call of Duty: World at War, Escape From Tarkov in Skyrim, and a version of Insomniac’s Spider-Man that lets you swing around Arkham City’s Batman: Gotham.

The trend snowballed in the span of a single week, driven by Claude Opus 5.5’s cheaper tokens and improved code generation, making it easier than ever to point the model at a game, decompile it, and add something else.

The results are inconsistent at best. Footage from YouTuber Brendan Jowett comparing the Opus 5.5 to OpenAI’s Astra 6 model shows that both struggle with the basics, including enemies that ignore the player, a space fighter that flies diagonally while shooting straight ahead.

However, none of these mashups have yet appeared on modding platforms like Nexus Mods, and IGN suggests that this is likely due to rights issues rather than a lack of interest. Nexus’ own 2023 policy on AI-generated content is straightforward on this: “In order to avoid any issues with your mods, we encourage you to avoid using these tools unless you have explicit permission to use all assets.”

Almost all mods circulating on Twitter/X rely on decompiled code and assets that the people building them have no rights to, which is precisely the scenario that Nexus’ policy was written to exclude.

As IGN posits, whether this holds true once a platform decides to host them is what modders are most concerned about. Right now, the trend is limited to engagement farming on Twitter/X, but could reshape what “modding” means.

On a related note, ahead of the endless GTA 6 mods we’re sure to get whenever the detective epic finally comes to PC, Rockstar Games has imposed new restrictions on the modding community.