Google AI Project Genie Allows You to Create Playable Worlds From Prompts, So of Course It’s Been Used to Rip Off Nintendo Games Like Mario and Zelda

Google has begun selling access to Project Genie, an interactive world creation tool that lets you generate playable environments from a prompt — including those featuring Nintendo characters.

The technology is certainly remarkable, as Google’s Genie 3 models playable 3D spaces in real time based upon user inputs, and allows you to run, swim, fly, or ride in vehicles around its AI-generated worlds.

But the AI technology has also launched with a telling lack of restrictions around copyrighted material — which the model also appears to have been trained upon. A preview of the possibilities published by The Verge shows its reporter able to create playable 3D scenes that look a direct copy of Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Kingdom Hearts.

https://twitter.com/GoogleDeepMind/status/2016919756440240479?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Footage published on social media shows gameplay clearly based on Nintendo’s actual Breath of the Wild, where a knock-off Link runs around a world similar to Hyrule, and accurately deploys a glider as he leaps off a cliff. Other creations include a generated world with similarities to Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto.

https://twitter.com/sumiturkude007/status/2017104164707586070?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Right now, Project Genie is limited to generating interactive experiences it can maintain for up to 60 seconds, with a resolution and frame rate capped at around 720p and 24fps. Still, Google is selling access as part of its Google AI Ultra subscription, its top level of access to AI features that costs $124.99 per month when signing up for a three-month package. (Also, Project Genie access is currently just for U.S. subscribers aged 18 or over.)

“Project Genie is an experimental research prototype designed to follow prompts a user provides,” Google Deepmind product manager Diego Rivas told The Verge when asked why the the product generated material that was clearly based on Nintendo intellectual property. “As with all experiments, we are monitoring closely and listening to user feedback.” The Verge noted that its ability to generate worlds based on Mario had subsequently been halted, with a warning message that blamed the “interests of third-party content providers.”

IGN has contacted Nintendo for comment.

The situation feels reminiscent to the rollout of OpenAI’s Sora 2 video model last October, which initially allowed users to generate clips featuring licensed Nintendo and Disney characters, including Mario, Darth Vader, Pikachu and an array of other Pokémon. Shortly after, OpenAI vowed to give copyright holders “more granular control” over the creation of what the company’s boss Sam Altman dubbed “interactive fan fiction.” Less than two months later, Disney said it was investing $1 billion into OpenAI to officially license 200 of its most popular characters for the AI model to use, in a move that the Mickey Mouse owner described as a way to “thoughtfully and responsibly extend” its storytelling.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social