Zelda & Banjo PC Port Devs Slam AI-Coded Banjo-Tooie Recompilation

Ever wonder what happens when a fan project goes AI? The devs behind some of the most beloved N64 PC ports are here to tell you it's not pretty.

The team behind Zelda 64: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled—both built on the N64: Recompiled tool—are speaking out against a new Banjo-Tooie recompilation that openly used AI to generate substantial portions of its code. The tool, which debuted two years ago, promised to simplify creating PC ports of classic N64 games. It first showed up alongside a 60fps port of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and earlier this year a Banjo-Kazooie port impressed even the series' original creator.

So you'd think a Banjo-Tooie recompilation using the same tool would be welcome, right? Not when it's built with AI. The creator of that project says "AI tools generated substantial portions of this project's code and assisted with engineering and review." That directly contradicts the original team's clear no-AI stance.

"The Banjo-Tooie Recompilation is NOT associated with us," developer Dario said on Bluesky. "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." Dario also pointed out that the team had already publicly expressed interest in doing a Tooie port themselves, saying it "requires a lot of love and care to do a proper port." He added, "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."

Another developer, Reonu_, was even more blunt on Reddit: "Using AI to rush out a broken 'alpha' of a port of a game Wiseguy and the rest of our team had already mentioned we were going to do using the tooling and runtime our team made and the decomp Wiseguy made sure is something else. AI bros are definitely not beating the 'lacking basic respect and common sense' allegations."

This isn't an isolated incident. Back in July, the devs behind Donkey Kong 64: Recompiled openly rejected "AI vibe coding" while promising a port of "actually good quality before our competitor releases their poorly made one." The concern isn't just quality—AI-coded projects can overshadow human-made ports that took far more care. Even RPCS3, a PS3 emulator that accepts AI-assisted code, has begged contributors to "stop submitting AI slop code" and instead "learn how to debug, code, and leave behind something useful to humanity."

So where do you stand? Are you team human-crafted ports, or do you think AI has a place in fan projects? Let us know in the comments.