Outrun 2026 - An Arcade racing classic gets an AI Amstrad CPC 128k port by Oldschool Is Beautiful

Looking through Xenomorph's Amstrad Youtube channel and I've come across Outrun 2026 for the Amstrad CPC 6128, a project brought to life by the label Oldschool Is Beautiful. Packed entirely onto a single floppy disk, this new title serves as a port of the classic SEGA Master System version. What could make this release divisive however, is its development process: not a single line of its Z80 assembly code was written by a human. Instead, the creator acted strictly as a director and hardware tester, utilizing Anthropic's advanced AI model, Claude Opus 5.5, via Claude Code to program the entire engine, build the file extraction utilities, and handle the complex music conversion.

1988 Amstrad CPC Version

AI 2026 port

Adapting the Master System code to the Amstrad's architecture required a complete overhaul from the ground up, as the console's original road-rendering techniques depended heavily on its specialized video hardware. To bridge this gap, the AI rewrote the rendering engine specifically for the CPC. Rather than relying on guesswork to replicate the iconic arcade feel, every critical element—including track layouts, roadside scenery scaling, driving physics, and the legendary soundtrack—was measured and translated directly from the Master System source. 

Features

• All 15 stages and their forks, with the original curves and hills
• All 3 full-length tunes: Magical Sound Shower, Passing Breeze, Splash Wave
• A specific horizon and roadside scenery for each stage
• Arrow signs before curves, placed as on the Master System
• Traffic, crashes and spins
• Start sequence with the crowd and the starting lights
• Extended time at each checkpoint, as in the original
• Three difficulty levels: EASY, NORMAL, HARD (HARD = Master System handling)
• Manual or automatic gearbox

Technical notes

• Mode 0, double buffering, about 16 frames per second
• Handling matched to the original: acceleration, braking, steering, centrifugal force
• Music converted from the Master System's SN76489 to the CPC's AY chip, played at the original tempo

AI Disclosure AI Assisted, Code, Graphics, Sounds, Text

Links :1) Source