Updated
Updated · Gizmodo · Jun 13
Ziwen Xu Builds AI GTA Rival in 5 Days, Racing November GTA VI Launch
Updated
Updated · Gizmodo · Jun 13

Ziwen Xu Builds AI GTA Rival in 5 Days, Racing November GTA VI Launch

2 articles · Updated · Gizmodo · Jun 13

Summary

  • Ziwen Xu’s AI-built game has quickly advanced from a blue oval on gray blocks to a prototype with NPCs, drivable roads and weapons as he tries to launch before Grand Theft Auto VI in November.
  • The 25-year-old Hyperecho founder says he is “vibe coding” the project with Anthropic’s Claude, posting daily updates and sharing the GitHub repository as the build evolves in public.
  • Early progress has exposed limits as well: Xu said the agent mistakenly generated downtown Los Angeles skyscrapers instead of a Florida-like setting and burned 33% of his Claude Max 20x weekly usage in one day.
  • The effort grew out of an AI-founder challenge to see whether Anthropic’s Fable 5 could generate a GTA-caliber open-world game, tapping into a broader but contested trend of AI-assisted “vibe coding.”

Insights

Can AI really code a masterpiece like GTA VI, or will it just create a technically impressive but creatively hollow imitation?
The AI model for the GTA clone was just suspended. Is the 'vibe coding' revolution already facing its first major crisis?
If one person can now build a AAA game with AI, what does this mean for the future of massive game development studios?