An open-source toolkit called REA (Reverse Engineer Anything) has exploded in popularity, surging from fewer than 10,000 GitHub stars on October 6 to over 100,000 by October 12. REA connects AI coding agents like Claude Opus 5.5 to reverse-engineering tools such as Ghidra, allowing users to decompile and analyze software. This has led to a wave of creative, and sometimes controversial, projects, including game mashups like Spider-Man swinging through Gotham in Batman: Arkham City and an unofficial PC port of Fable 2.
The toolkit itself doesn’t decompile code directly but bridges AI models with professional reverse-engineering tools via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). While REA’s developer emphasizes that it doesn’t recover original source code, users have leveraged it to create free alternatives to paid software, such as ArtCraft, a Rust-built open-source suite mirroring Adobe’s Creative Cloud apps. Developer Brandon Thomas, frustrated by Adobe’s cancellation fees, built ArtCraft as a clean-room rebuild, avoiding direct use of Adobe’s code.
However, the rise of REA has raised legal and ethical concerns. Game studios like Activision and Bethesda have already taken action against AI-decompiled versions of their games, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Fallout: New York. While REA promises cheaper clones, better game preservation, and easier software analysis, it also risks enabling piracy and exposing security vulnerabilities. As of now, REA continues to evolve, with eight releases between October 3 and October 11, while Thomas has adjusted his timeline for ArtCraft’s feature parity with Adobe’s suite.