FAQ

Are AI merge games real or fake?

Many are real. The MW2, Skate 3 and Minecraft mashup, SkyCraft and Mario in Elden Ring all have public code and downloads on GitHub. Some viral clips, including the original Minecraft in Elden Ring video, have never been released. Every entry on this site is labelled Playable, Build it yourself or Video only. See every viral clip checked.

Do I need to own both games?

Almost always, yes. Legitimate mashup mods never include game files. They read the files from your own installed copies, the same way Garry’s Mod needed other Source games back in 2004. Each mashup page lists exactly which games, versions and platforms you need.

Is it safe to download AI game mashups?

Only from the creator’s own repository. Fake look-alike repositories appeared within days of the trend. We link the official page for every project and never re-upload anything. Back up your saves before installing, and never run an unsigned .exe from an account created the same week. How to spot fake downloads.

Can I get banned for playing these mods?

Not if you stay offline. Most mashups only run with anti-cheat switched off, and the creators are explicit that they must never be taken online. Games such as Elden Ring and GTA V can ban accounts that join online play with modified files.

Do AI merge games work on Mac?

Most are Windows only, because the host games are Windows PC games. The Minecraft Crossover Bridge is the exception: it runs Minecraft inside Elden Ring or Monster Hunter World on Apple Silicon Macs through CrossOver. Use the finder and pick Mac.

Can I merge two games myself with AI?

Yes, if you are patient. Tools like Claude Code with the open-source universal-modder toolkit can identify a game’s engine, decompile it and build a mod. You still need to own the games and to judge what feels right. The AI cannot. Read the step-by-step guide.

Are AI game mashups legal?

It is a grey area. Reverse engineering for compatibility is allowed in some places, but distributing a publisher’s files or characters is not, and publishers can demand takedowns. Fans who rebuilt GTA 3 and Vice City were hit with a DMCA takedown in 2021. That is why every project here asks you to bring your own games.

I made a mashup. Can you list it?

Yes. Send us the official repository or video link. We read the README, check what you need to own, and add it with the right status label. We never list projects that bundle game files.Email us

Family tree

The AI Merge Games Family Tree

Updated October 7, 2026

AI merge games look like a sudden explosion of separate ideas. Trace the credits and they turn out to be a family tree. 20 of the 26 mashups we track descend from just 6 foundation projects, and the two biggest branches lead back to one modder, chasm.

How to read the family tree

Each branch starts with a foundation: a rebuilt engine, a decompilation, or a mod whose design others copied. Below it are the mashups that say, in their own README or credits, that they build on it. A line from one mashup to another means the second took code from the first. Some projects sit in two families at once, like the MW2 mashup, which is both a fork of the MW2 rewrite and the home of the Skate 3 engine most others reuse. The largest family is the Skate 3 Rust Engine, with 7 descendants.

Foundation

Skate 3 Rust Engine

by SK8-ENGINE · source ↗

An open-source rebuild of Skate 3's skating engine in Rust, built on years of community reverse-engineering. It reads data from your own Xbox 360 copy.

The most reused piece of the whole trend. Once Skate 3's board physics existed as open code, modders could drop a skater into almost any game with a plugin system. Seven of the mashups we track carry it, either directly or through chasm's MW2 mashup, which packaged it alongside Modern Warfare 2. That is why skating feels the same in Bully, San Andreas, Garry's Mod and Azeroth: it is the same engine every time.

Skate 3 Rust Engine

Foundation

SkyCraft

by chasm · our page

Minecraft inside Skyrim: a Skyrim plugin and a Minecraft mod that talk through shared memory while both games run.

SkyCraft didn't just put Minecraft in Skyrim. It wrote down how a passthrough mod should work, with a clear design doc, and published both halves. Other modders then kept its Minecraft side and swapped in a new host plugin for their own game. Within a week the same design was running in Fallout 4, Valheim, Outer Wilds and ULTRAKILL, and ArkWeb borrowed the architecture for two games with no Minecraft at all.

SkyCraft

Foundation

IW4L

by vladtrc and contributors · source ↗

A from-scratch Rust rewrite of Modern Warfare 2 (2009) that reads maps, models and weapons from your own install.

IW4L is the reason the viral MW2 clip was possible. With Modern Warfare 2 rebuilt as readable code, chasm could fork it and bolt Skate 3 and a Minecraft world onto the same runtime. Others followed the same recipe: CS-Craft rebuilt CS:GO the same way, on the same engine version, so the games can eventually be stitched together.

IW4L

Foundation

universal-modder's Minecraft × GTA V example

by Rehan Sheikh · our page

The worked example inside the universal-modder toolkit: real Minecraft drawn into GTA V story mode.

Shipped as a teaching example inside an AI modding toolkit, it was meant to be copied. VortexisTV took it and rebuilt it around one monster, Cracker's Wither Storm, so the storm could pull GTA's cars and pedestrians into the sky.

universal-modder's Minecraft × GTA V example

Foundation

TobynJacobs' Minecraft in Elden Ring clip

by TobynJacobs · our page

The most-viewed clip of the wave. Never released, so its descendants are rebuilds of the idea, not of its code.

An unreleased video still started a family. justbustin built a Mac version from scratch and credited the original idea, and siddoff then adapted that bridge for Windows. Neither contains code from the clip, which is still private.

TobynJacobs' Minecraft in Elden Ring clip

Foundation

Super Mario 64 decompilation and libsm64

by n64decomp and the libsm64 contributors · source ↗

A community decompilation of Super Mario 64, and libsm64, a library that runs Mario's movement anywhere.

Years before the AI wave, fans turned Super Mario 64 back into source code. libsm64 then packaged Mario's movement as a library any game could call. ER Mario feeds it Elden Ring's live collision, and Mario's triple jumps work in the Lands Between.

Super Mario 64 decompilation and libsm64

Standalone mashups

These 6 don't credit another mashup or rebuilt engine as their base. Some lean on general modding tools, such as Script Hook or BepInEx, which every mod uses. Others are video-only, so there is no code to trace yet.

How we traced the family tree

Every line on this page comes from the child project's own README, credits or licence notice, read on October 7, 2026. We don't connect projects because they look alike. If a creator doesn't say what they built on, the project goes in the standalone list, even when the similarity is obvious.

The pattern matters if you want to build one yourself. Almost nobody starts from zero: they fork a working design and change one side of it. Read how passthrough mods work for the SkyCraft branch, or which games can be modded with AI for the loaders each branch depends on. Spotted a missing link? Email hello@aimergegames.xyz with the source.