On a Friday night in October, Activision hit a fan with a DMCA notice for putting old Call of Duty games in a web browser. Four days later, the head of Xbox, the company that owns Activision, called projects like that “unmistakably good outcomes for players” and started Xbox Labs.
So which Microsoft is real? This video looks at the two weeks of AI-assisted fan ports that led to the memo (Modern Warfare 2 with Skate 3’s skateboarding, Halo in a browser tab, World of Warcraft rewritten from scratch), the three takedowns that came from Microsoft’s own companies, what the memo says and what it leaves out, why decompilation was the first job in games that AI got good at, what Microsoft’s history predicts, why mods keep turning into genres, what modders are worried about, and what Xbox could do to prove it means it.
Chapters:
0:00 Friday night, Tuesday memo
0:43 Two weeks of fan ports
2:46 Read the memo
5:10 Microsoft has been here before
6:40 Mods become genres
8:12 Who is “us”?
9:37 What would prove it
10:22 Let us do it
A few notes: the Call of Duty browser builds are offline, so those shots use the original PC games’ footage and are labelled as reconstructions. No links to unofficial builds are shown or given. Quoted posts appear as published.
Sources
– Xbox Wire, “Introducing XBOX LABS” (Oct 13, 2026); Asha Sharma on X (Oct 13, 2026)
– The Verge, “Xbox is officially embracing the chaos of AI-powered game ports” (Tom Warren, Oct 13, 2026)
– labs.xbox.com (as of Oct 14, 2026)
– Luckey Faraday on X (Oct 9, 2026); Charlie Intel (Oct 10, 2026); Pause Hardware and Gameriv on the Call of Duty browser projects
– Kotaku, “We Might Be Cooked…” (Lewis Parker, Oct 9, 2026); Kotaku on the Activision and Bethesda takedowns (Oct 3, 2026)
– Mitch (@mitchellhynes) on X (Oct 2 and Oct 13, 2026); aLTis (@aLTis69) on X (Oct 3, 2026)
– chasm (@chasmmmmmmmmmmm) on X (Sep 27, Oct 13, 2026); Held Games on the IW4L rewrite
– Maurice Heumann (@momo5502) on X (Sep 30 and Oct 4, 2026)
– Reddit threads on the memo: r/gaming, r/xbox, r/pcmasterrace, r/Games, r/pcgaming (Oct 13–14, 2026)
– TechCrunch and MobileSyrup on Asha Sharma’s first memo (Feb 2026)
– Microsoft Research, “Introducing Muse” (Feb 2025)
– Microsoft’s Game Content Usage Rules (last updated January 2015; checked Oct 14, 2026)
– Xbox Wire on the final backward compatibility additions (Nov 2021); Xbox backward compatibility on PC (July 22, 2026)
– GitHub’s public DMCA repository: Nintendo notices of Sep 30 and Oct 1, 2026
– Mojang on removing obfuscation from Minecraft: Java Edition (Oct 2025)
– United States v. Microsoft Corp. (1998–2001); Steve Ballmer to the Chicago Sun-Times (June 2001)
– Counter-Strike, Dota and battle royale histories; the Blizzard–Valve DOTA trademark settlement (May 2012)
– AM2R (Aug 6, 2016) and Metroid: Samus Returns (Sep 15, 2017)
Footage
– labs.xbox.com and its trailers; Halo: Campaign Evolved, Gears of War: E-Day, Fable, Sea of Thieves (Microsoft)
– Modern Warfare 2 × Skate 3, the World of Warcraft rewrite, Skate 3 in a browser: chasm on X
– Halo: Combat Evolved with 128 players: aLTis on X; Halo browser port gameplay
– Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Black Ops Zombies (reconstruction): ClassicCOD, NoAnnoyingCommentary Z
– Excitebike 64: Casual Racer Red; Muse and Bleeding Edge: Microsoft Research
– Xbox E3 2015 (Xbox); Counter-Strike 1.6: VCoM; Warcraft III DotA: dashstrike; Dota 2 (Valve); DayZ mod: DuckySchwag; PUBG (Krafton); Fortnite (Epic Games)
– DOOM (1993): Games Walkthrough; DOOM on a TI-83: LGR; DOOM on a Canon printer: Context Information Security; DOOM on a John Deere tractor: Nev’s Tech Bits; DOOM: The Dark Ages (Bethesda)
– AM2R: Omega Metroid; Metroid: Samus Returns (Nintendo); Minecraft (Mojang)
#Xbox #Halo #Decompilation
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Sounds like restriction and interference, of course they are going to want to have a say in this, consoles are going to go extinct here soon. It’s just a matter of time, I’m not giving them the solution either. 🤣
I hope all Tony Hawk games come to Series and PC
Gabe realized you can't outcompete your fans long ago. Guess it's just a coincidence they have such a dominant position in the industry.
Interesting…so, they want in on the action, eh?
I think they know the cat is outta the bag and that now we have games crossing the platform barrier effortlessly, gatekeeping with exclusives to drive console sales is pretty much going the way of the dinosaurs. Its positively a good thing that this has gotten the horse to come to water and make it drink. Feels like the right time for it when we got such tumult of late.
Hmm, actually, i wonder…
Y'know when the AI hotshots were practically begging the government to intervene with regulations? Was this why? I think it would make perfect sense that when the chips are down, they'd go running to big daddy government to pull them out of the fire. Well trodden ground and all the bogus stuff about AI being out of control figuratively must have been attempting to manufacture consent for government intervention. At least, it is a workable theory.
Seeing skate 3 physics in Airport was the catalyst that shook the world
shes a queen
finally we can put the cars and physics of midtown madness into forza
I really hope that csuite executives see the light and finally understand Carmack was right. Gamers want games and if they love them, will keep playing them even keeping them alive for you. Thats so much free advertising and public goodwill
0:50 World of Warcraft is not owned by Microsoft lol
Consoles are for oldheads, it’s all pc mods now
I fear none of this will end well for the consumer. Rules for thee and not for me; They'll end up using this tech and regulating it for the little guy
Well produced video, subbed.
Microsoft is pretty smart
I think Xbox labs will be a sandbox but with something special. I believe they will push for streaming games. Like stadia. Once you get player accustomed to that it’ll be easy to keep selling AAA games to be played in the cloud and you won’t get the source code just a stream of pixels to your client.
The obvious logical thing to do is the hire the fans who decompile games.
If Nintendo sold they own ROMs people would actually buy it
Agent and AI is interchangeable now.
More bs about asha. Just because she says what you wanna hear. How many times are you guys gonna fall for it
Remember these people aren't for the gamers everything they do is to make them more profit and to make your life more expensive. Don't fall for more corporate lies.
Claude of Duty
am i the only one who is scared by all this ?
She's probably spouting off what an AI told her to say after asking "how do we turn this around" or similar
She's actually smart for this, ngl. If she's seeing how this is all actively going down, she might use this kind of game-in-browser technique to better XBox Cloud Gaming to give all of us a better experience with our games when Cloud Gaming.
I do feel that if you need to correctly own a copy of the game itself to play something someone made then it's a mod and as long as they aren't making money off of your code by selling it themselves its perfectly ok. This doesn't just effect the big guys. Indie developers with much less money to fight this kinda thing could very easily get screwed if their game gets decompiled. Again as long as the modder doesn't profit and it requires the base game then it's just a mod and all should be ok. And if you cannot obtain the base game anymore or play it anymore that should mean the developer has released it to the public. They obviously haven't released the IP to the game but the game itself should be open to anyone if the "have to own a license yourself" box can no longer be checked
Why do gamers are very thrilled to bankrupt studios who made their favorite games. Do you punch your mom or something?
This is why they open-sourced WINUI11 BTW
Removing them is fair, but at the same time if you own the games physically I believe you should be able to play them on whatever device where ever they're available.
Ironic that the CEO of Xbox, the ex-head of Microsoft's AI division, is supposedly against AI decomps of Microsoft/Xbox related games (at least to the point of taking them down). Tinfoil hat is that I wouldn't be surprised if she or a team under her was responsible for opening this Pandora's Box because that "Xbox Labs" division was conveniently set up immediately afterwards to coral the momentum of this sudden shift.
Heard someone mention a good point,
Individuals / Companies might have to stream software to people through browser as a default.
Everything through cloud and output streamed to user so user doesn't see the binary code , and it's back to much more complex attempts at recreation by inference
(Playstation already had this for years outputting just the visual and the audio to the user and has ran pretty good for a while already)
Someone of primtimeagen mentioned this
With AI, all of these game companies and corporations "Could" have made something like ready player one, but their greed and love for money blinded them from it, which ironically would have made them more money. that's how the asshat pencil pusher and stockholders at these companies think. Greedy fucking bastards.
hardcore lemmino vibes with this
Nope, we know all about their Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
The next step should be to use decomp data to make WYSIWYG level editors (or stand-alone game makers) for specific titles to give fan communities a healthy boost.
actually if you think about it, we are getting closer and closer to Ready Player One movie, imagine bringing all games and making it into one.
How the hell did I end up in a world where that shitty OS company owns most of my beloved childhood games 🙁
Microsoft trying to gatekeep gamers once again 😂
Big tech:
– Firing people: we love ai
– Anything else: oh no, we need regulations around AI
yea these companies with their little gatekeeping on games can go sug a dih, aint gonna stop me doing desktop ports and VR ports of older titles they won't keep them alive or remake them in anyway.
And i seriously don't see a issue in game files being included for games that are legit turning into dead media, also have no benefit no ones buying them anymore from retailers. And they slowly just left to die or be store on the net once a game gets to 10 years old and over i think you have the right to do what you want, ofc without making money off their work if its to preserve and remake the experience there shouldn't be an issue when the title is fading and the company makes absolutely no profit off it at that point it don't matter no ones being hurt.
They should just release the source code, save a bunch of time and energy on AI
Activision Activision refuses to let people have what thry want… Sm2 mod looked perfect.
The way these video game company’s like to run stuff and neglect their fans makes me never wanna buy a game again and pirate every single one of them except for steam games because Gabe knows how to treat and work with a fan base
open source the engine; protect the game content with IP. Problem solved.
What they need to do is turn “Let Us Do It” into “Let’s Do It!”