ANTHROPIC
Claude just cracked a 13-year-old puzzle
A hobbyist modder has shared an example of what AI-assisted coding can do when used on an unsolved technical problem.
The project focused on Disney Infinity 1.0 (2013), a game where physical figures unlock playable characters.
In the original game, each character can only be used in its own “home” playset. E.g, Mr Incredible can only be played in the Incredibles world.
Modders had been trying to remove that limit for more than 10 years, with no luck, due to the code's incredibly complex constraints.
The reason was simple: the restriction was not controlled by one setting or file.
It was built into the game’s native binary code, where one key function — FindPlaysetForCharacter — was used 13 times across six different parts of the game simultaneously. Fixing one check did not solve the problem, because the others still blocked access.
Using Claude Code with Opus 4.6, the developer analysed the game’s binary without source code, symbols, or reverse-engineering notes.
The AI helped trace the key function through the code, find all 13 validation points, and identify the exact bytes that needed to be patched.
The process took less than 24 hours.
The final mod includes 17 binary patches and three modified data files, allowing any character to work in any playset - the holy grail for fans of the game.
In brief:
The mod removes a character limit that had blocked the community for years.
Claude Code helped analyse the game binary and find the patches needed to make it work.
The project is now public, open source, and already being tested by players.
The nerd win
Users described it as something they had been waiting years for, while some were already testing it on devices like the Steam Deck and asking for versions for Disney Infinity 2.0 and 3.0.
What makes this stand out is not just the mod itself, but how it was built.
Instead of using AI for a simple coding task, the developer used it to help reverse engineer a commercial game with no documentation and solve a problem the community had not cracked in over a decade.
Just let Claude run my whole life at this point - MV