Banjo: Recompiled lead disavows AI-made Banjo-Tooie port
The developer behind the fan-made PC version of Banjo-Kazooie says a new Banjo-Tooie port has nothing to do with him.
Argentinian software developer DarioSamo, who led Banjo: Recompiled, said in a statement on X published on 2 October that the Banjo-Tooie Recomp is not associated with his team and is entirely AI-generated. He criticised the project as disrespectful to human research and called AI-generated ports a race to the bottom, according to Video Games Chronicle.
Banjo: Recompiled is an unofficial PC port of the Nintendo 64 platform game Banjo-Kazooie. It became possible after fan developers reverse-engineered the original game, the slow work of turning its code back into readable form, in 2024. The project is hosted on GitHub as BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp and is described there as a PC port made using N64: Recompiled.
It does not include the game itself. Players must supply their own legally sourced ROM, a copy of the data from the original cartridge, to make it run. Once running, it supports framerates above 120 fps, ultrawide and widescreen display modes, a dual-analog camera, instant load times and user-created mods.
DarioSamo published the disavowal from his official X account, @dariosamo, displayed as Darío. He wrote that both Zelda: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled have clear No AI stances. His team has not, does not and will not use AI on the projects, he said.
The row turns on how these ports get made. Decompilation relies on people painstakingly rebuilding and checking code by hand. Recompilation uses AI tools to translate machine code into functional native code, which is quicker to make than the decompilation method. DarioSamo claims the new Banjo-Tooie recomp was made by applying AI to tools created by his team.
Using his team's extensive human research for the framework, renderer and games and throwing AI at it is very disrespectful, he said. He added that his team was not interested in engaging in a race to the bottom and would take the time necessary to deliver a polished version.
He also criticised YouTube channel Video Game Esoterica for reporting on the Banjo-Tooie recomp without making clear the Banjo: Recompiled team had nothing to do with it.
What makes this stand out for players is the wait involved. DarioSamo said his team has publicly said for a long time that it is interested in doing Banjo-Tooie at some point with love and care for a proper port. For fans, this means no shortcut release from his group, only a slower hand-built version if it happens.
