An AI startup founder is trying to vibe code his own "Grand Theft Auto" game

June 14, 2026 - 19:54

An AI startup founder has set himself an audacious challenge: build a playable Grand Theft Auto clone using only AI coding tools before Rockstar Games releases Grand Theft Auto 6 in November. The project, which he calls "vibe coding," relies entirely on Anthropic's Claude to generate the game's code, assets, and logic.

The founder, who runs a small AI company, streams his daily progress on social media. He starts each session by describing what he wants -- a car chase, a police pursuit, a city block -- and Claude writes the Python or JavaScript code to make it happen. So far, he has produced a rudimentary top-down driving simulation with basic collision detection and a few buildings rendered as colored rectangles.

The result looks nothing like a modern GTA. There are no pedestrians, no voice acting, no detailed textures. The cars are simple boxes that move across a flat grid. But the founder insists the point is not to rival Rockstar's multi-million dollar production. Instead, he wants to test how far current AI can go in replacing traditional game development skills.

Critics point out that even a simple open-world game requires thousands of interconnected systems: physics, AI for non-player characters, mission scripting, audio, and optimization. Claude can generate code snippets, but it cannot debug complex interactions or design a coherent game loop. The founder admits his project crashes frequently and lacks any real gameplay beyond driving in circles.

Still, the experiment raises a serious question. If AI can produce a crude but functional game in a few weeks, what happens when models improve? Some developers worry that vibe coding could devalue programming skills. Others see it as a new creative tool, like using a game engine instead of writing everything from scratch.

The November deadline adds pressure. GTA 6 is expected to be the most expensive and most anticipated game ever made. The AI founder knows he will not beat Rockstar on quality. But he might prove that a single person with a chatbot can build something that, at a glance, resembles a video game. Whether that is impressive or depressing depends on who you ask.