Decompilation on Steroids: Why AI Is Suddenly Cracking Open Old Software

What happened

Melee, and Halo: Combat Evolved all reached them. GoldenEye, Halo, Photoshop, even bank mainframes: AI is prying open old code at record speed.

Features Tech Culture Decompilation on Steroids: Why AI Is Suddenly Cracking Open Old Software From Halo to Adobe Clones, AI Agents Thrive When Their Work Comes With an Answer Key By Julio Franco October 11, 2026 Add TechSpot Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust .

Comments Reddit Facebook RSS Over the past few weeks, several reverse-engineering efforts have crossed major milestones. Another developer, running a fleet of 17 AI agents (AI that carries out multi-step tasks rather than answering one question), rebuilt a playable 2009 Call of Duty from its compiled executable.

Open-source clones of Adobe apps showed up on GitHub almost overnight. Earlier in the year, a single blog post about COBOL knocked IBM's stock off a cliff.

These might look like separate stories, but they share one common thread: AI has sharply cut the cost of understanding old code, as long as something can check its work. So yes, AI is a big part of it, but it's not the whole story.