The Modern Warfare 2, Skate 3 and Minecraft Game: What It Is, Who Built It and How to Run It
The viral clip of skateboarding in Modern Warfare 2 is real, but it is not a mod. What the 2010 Rust Rewrite Mashup actually is, the chain of projects behind it, what you need to run it, and what we could and could not verify.
A short video of a soldier kickflipping off a roof in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 got millions of views in late September 2026, and many people assumed it was an AI fake. It is real, you can download it, and it is not a mod. This article explains what it is, the chain of open-source projects behind it, what you need to run it, and which claims we could and could not check.
The post that started it
The clip was posted on 27 September 2026 by Chasm, the developer of the project:
AI HACKERS HAVE PUT SKATEBOARDING IN CALL OF DUTY MODERN WARFARE 2! 🚨
THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR.
ITS TIME TO PACE THE FRONTIER.
@DarioAmodei @sama @elonmusk @theo
— Chasm (@chasmmmmmmmmmmm) September 27, 2026
The post tags several well-known figures from the AI industry, and it is a joke. HeldGames points out that it was written by the person who built the project, and that the footage is genuine. The joke is the reason many viewers read it as AI-generated.
What it actually is
It helps to separate three things that look alike from the outside.
| What it does | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| Mod | Changes the original game's files or runs inside the original program. | A map or weapon pack for the game you already launch. |
| Decompilation | Rebuilds the original source code from the compiled program. | See our guide. |
| Engine reimplementation | Writes a new engine from scratch that loads the original game's data. | IW4L. |
The project is the third kind. You start iw4l.exe, not Modern Warfare 2. The IW4L README describes itself as a clean reimplementation, not a decompilation, distributes no game assets, and reads your installation without patching or replacing its files. The background on this route, including why people choose Rust and the Bevy engine, is in the guide.
The chain of projects behind it
The mashup is the last link in a short chain, and each link has a different author.
| Project | Author | Role | Licence | Stars on 7 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IW4L | vladtrc | Rust and Bevy runtime for Modern Warfare 2, started on 13 September 2026 | Apache-2.0 | 810 |
| skate-3-rust-engine | SK8-ENGINE, building on research by dumbad | Skateboarding game in Rust and Bevy based on Skate 3 reverse engineering | GPL-3.0-only | 647 |
| 2010 Rust Rewrite Mashup | Chasm | A fork of IW4L that adds the Skate 3 mode and a Minecraft world | Apache-2.0 | 796 |
Three details from the repositories show how the pieces connect:
- The skating comes from a separate project. The mashup's Skate 3 documentation says the physics, animation graph and grind code come from the skate-3-rust-engine repository, pinned to a specific commit. That project's README credits more than two years of reverse-engineering work by dumbad as the foundation.
- Minecraft is a set of reused crates. The NOTICE file lists five crates from MinecraftOSS in the repository, and the game downloads the Minecraft data from Mojang rather than shipping it.
- The author read other Call of Duty projects. The NOTICE file names OpenAssetTools, iw4x-x64, IW4x, KisakCOD and Ghidra as projects consulted during development and says none of them is vendored or distributed.
The same developer is behind another mashup in our catalog, SkyCraft, which brings Minecraft's movement and combat into Skyrim. HeldGames describes the Modern Warfare 2 project as the latest in about six months of similar projects.
Clone of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
What you can do in it
According to the README and press coverage:
- Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer, running in the IW4L engine. The IW4L README is open that gameplay is incomplete and to expect missing behaviour, bugs and desyncs.
- A Skate 3 mode on any map. You press J, or click both controller sticks, to leave soldier mode and ride a board with Skate 3 physics, tricks and grinds. The README lists one known issue: on some maps the board is invisible.
- An endless Minecraft world as a map. It has vanilla world generation, passive and hostile mobs, crafting, a day and night cycle, and blocks that break at a rate scaled to Modern Warfare 2 gun damage. The inventory is restyled in the look of Modern Warfare 2. After the first download it plays offline.
What you need to run it
We are not reproducing the set-up steps, which belong in the project's README, but the requirements shape what the project is:
- Windows x64.
- Your own copy of Modern Warfare 2. The README says the Steam version is the one tested.
- Optional, for the Skate 3 mode: a file called
default.xexand the game's data folder, extracted from your own Xbox 360 copy of Skate 3, and a controller. A converter tool in the project reads only what skating needs: the skater model, animation banks, state graphs, and input and physics settings. - Internet on the first launch only, to download about 125 MB of Minecraft data from Mojang.
Nothing is bundled. That is the same approach as most preservation-style engine rewrites: the code is open, the game data stays with you.
Was it made by AI?
Three accounts exist, and they do not say the same thing.
- The joke. The viral post says "AI hackers", but its author wrote it as a gag.
- The IW4L README. It states: "This whole project is written by an LLM." The skate-3-rust-engine README also says AI coding tools helped, while stressing that none of it would exist without dumbad's reverse engineering.
- The press account. MakeUseOf reports that Claude Opus 5.5 helped with the Modern Warfare 2 styled inventory and several rounds of optimisation, and that the author considers the work mostly vibe coded, but that a human had to judge whether the gameplay felt right because the AI could not.
The mashup's own README, as far as we read it, does not describe how much of it was written by AI. We take the three accounts together as: AI wrote a large share of the code, a human directed and tested it, and the skateboarding rests on years of human reverse engineering. This is the same pattern we describe in our article on AI and decompilation, where an engine written this way has no byte-for-byte referee, so success is judged by whether it plays.
Is it legal?
We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice. What we can report:
- The repository contains no Call of Duty or Skate game data and no Minecraft code or assets, and it states that it is not affiliated with their owners.
- HeldGames describes the project's position as a grey area, not a settled one.
- Activision has shut down Call of Duty fan projects before. In May 2023 a team member of SM2, a fan project that combined Modern Warfare 2 with features from other Call of Duty games, announced a cease and desist letter sent on behalf of Activision Publishing, and the project closed.
- We found no report of a similar action against this project as of 7 October 2026. That is the absence of a report we could find, not proof that none exists.
The general picture of who owns what in decompilation and reimplementation is in the guide.
What to watch
The mashup is only days old, with four releases between 28 September and 1 October, so details will move. HeldGames counted about 5,700 downloads across those releases. Things we will watch: whether the project keeps its Windows builds, whether other games get the same treatment now that the skating and Minecraft code exist as reusable pieces, and whether any rights holder reacts. For the engine underneath, see the IW4L page in our catalog.
Sources and method
Project facts come from the READMEs, the Skate 3 mode documentation and the NOTICE file of the mashup repository, the IW4L README and the skate-3-rust-engine README. The post and its counters come from X on 7 October 2026. Press and context: HeldGames, MakeUseOf and GGRecon. Our general approach is on the methodology page.
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FAQ
- Is the Modern Warfare 2, Skate 3 and Minecraft game real?
- Yes. It is a released open-source project called 2010 Rust Rewrite Mashup, published on GitHub under the Apache-2.0 licence with Windows builds. The viral video was posted by the person who built it.
- Is it a mod for Modern Warfare 2?
- No. You launch its own program, not MW2. It runs on IW4L, a from-scratch rewrite of the Modern Warfare 2 engine in Rust that loads the data from your own copy of the game and does not modify it.
- Do I need to own the games?
- Yes. The project ships no game files. You need your own copy of Modern Warfare 2 (the Steam version is the one the README says it was tested with). The Skate 3 mode is optional and needs a file extracted from your own Xbox 360 copy of Skate 3. The Minecraft data is downloaded from Mojang's servers on the first launch.
- Was it made by AI?
- Partly, and the sources differ on how much. The IW4L README says the whole project is written by an LLM. A MakeUseOf report says the author used Claude Opus 5.5 for some parts and described the work as mostly vibe coded. The viral post that said AI hackers did it was a joke by the author.
- Is it legal?
- We cannot give legal advice. The project distributes no copyrighted game data and says it is unaffiliated with the games' owners. One write-up calls its position a grey area, not a settled one. We found no report of action against this project at the time of writing.
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