Is it possible to use AI to recreate Highguard in some way?

[u/TuroT]

I think AI might be a solution to bring a lot of games back, but I have no idea it works. It seems really possible though with everything going on. Would something like this be possible?

[u/spooky_redditor]

Purely talking about mechanics and not graphics or audio or blablabla. The game wont feel exactly like Highguard but AI should be capable of recreating the mechanics. Idk if the free stuff is enough today you might have to pay, and maybe even after you pay there is some annoying safety. I would wait for local to get good.

[u/TuroT → u/spooky_redditor]

So the games that are being remade right now don't feel like the originals?

[u/spooky_redditor → u/TuroT]

Oh yeah but thats not recreation, thats decompiling a game fully stored in your computer, you have a full body and you want to cut it open. Highguard was live service, barely anything is stored in your computer, you have to construct the full body going off a very mangled body part and looking at footage from when there was a full body. And it will only get more demanding because with cloud gaming you dont have the very mangled body part either.

[u/TuroT → u/spooky_redditor]

I still have it installed though. Would that make it possible?

[u/spooky_redditor → u/TuroT]

Depends on what exactly is installed. It could be the full game but missing the obligatory server connection or it could be barely anything or something inbetween.

[u/TuroT → u/spooky_redditor]

Cool. It's around 21 gigs. It did have easy anti-cheat and required secure boot to run.

[u/Aadi_880]

If you mean decomp and re-upload, then yes. That is within the current realm of possibility.

Coding it out via pure images and video input will not make it highguard. It will just be a different game with probably a high guard skin, and much difficult to do. Though, this likely doesn't mean much to a lot of people.

[u/TuroT → u/Aadi_880]

Decomp and re-upload means it goes through and accesses the code to see how it works then re-puts it together in a way where it runs (in layman-ish terms)? I'm by no means knowledgable about any of this stuff, just very genuinely curious and if it was possible I'd be interested.

[u/Aadi_880 → u/TuroT]

I guess it's accurate enough.

In Layman's terms: Decomp (decompilation) is conversion of machine code (1s and 0s) back into the higher level language (what humans can read, like programming languages such as Python or C++) that the game was first built/programmed with.

This is a painstakingly difficult task with little reward. Hence why AI use with it is gaining popularity.

[u/ProjectionProjects]

I really hope it does not have to come to that. The games industry should not be the one destroying games and we the community have to fix their mess. They should just not destroy games in the first place.

[u/Deltaboiz]

Its probably not that hard right now to throw a bunch of tokens at the game to make functional private servers. I just don't know how much that would cost, but it might be like 40 bucks or it might be 400.

You dont need to recreate the game you just need to be able to launch it and connect to a server, and there is nothing stopping models like Claude from being able to do that. Just cost, time and someone with enough desire to.

[u/TuroT → u/Deltaboiz]

this has my interest piqued - the game can still be launched (via Steam), it just doesn't go past the first loading screen. To connect to other servers, what would that even entail?

[u/Deltaboiz → u/TuroT]

Id have to know exactly how the game is and run to give you anything more than throw tokens at it as an answer. But you could realistically get the AI to do it, right now, and it will eventually succeed... but it might be 10 dollars, or 10,000 dollars, in tokens to do.

But if you have been on Youtube shorts or TikTok lately and seen any of those mash up games like putting COD into Minecraft? That is all done with AI. It isnt an AI Video, its AI Code. Somebody just kept messing around with Claude until eventually the AI figured out the best way to get these two games running is to essentially run both games at the same time, and created a custom pass through layer where one game is running and when it does something, sends instructions to the other game and executes them. It is an absolutely bonkers set up from a technical perspective and is the type of task that would take hobbyist modders years to do. It keeps doing it with stuff like putting Spiderman into Skyrim or Skate into GTA5

A lot of the advancements we have seen on cracking the PS5, both the PS5 emulator as well as trying to get a translation layer to run PS5 games on PC the same way the Steam Deck uses Proton? That's all AI right now.

If its not necessarily feasible today in another 18 months it might be trivial to do.

[u/Imhotep99301]

Not without violating copyright and ending up in a butt load of trouble.

[u/Aadi_880 → u/Imhotep99301]

As if that's a problem.

A lot of data preservation acts people do involve the high seas. If you're experienced in that, then violating copyright is the least of the problems.

Also I thought AI users didn't care about copyright to the lot of you?

[u/TuroT → u/Imhotep99301]

So it's possible though actually? The game doesn't exist at all currently, the studio laid off most people - I don't know the actual law around it. The copyright is still owned by Wildlight Studios I believe.