At Recalbox, we know that some retro games are legendarily difficult. Who hasn't thrown away their controller after yet another defeat in Ghosts ‘n Goblins or Battletoads? Who hasn't cursed the level of the motorbike in Batman & Robin on Mega Drive?

That's why we're proud to announce Recalbox AI, a revolution in emulation: a high-performance artificial intelligence system that instantly detects your incompetence and takes over the controls for you!

• The AI finishes the level for you.
• If you're struggling against a boss, Recalbox AI* analyses the boss's patterns and beats him in less than 10 seconds.
• If you lose in multiplayer, the AI takes control and makes you look like a pro in front of your Netplay friends.

DigitalLumberjack explains how the project came about

"It all started after one of our testers spent 3 hours on the first level of Ghosts ‘n Goblins and never got to the second. At that point, we thought we had to do something. The idea of Recalbox AI was born: a system capable of helping players... or taking over completely when things get too annoying."

"We designed an AI that could learn from each player. Initially, it simply analysed mistakes, but we soon realised that for some players this was a wasted effort. So we added a ‘Take my controller’ mode that triggers auto-play as soon as a player dies more than 10 times in the same spot. ".

Cutting-edge technology to overcome lack of skill

Thanks to an algorithm based on Deep Neural Retro Learning™ (DNRL), Recalbox AI analyses your inputs in real time and detects your mistakes before you even make them. An 8-bit machine learning engine retrieves data from each failure to adjust the strategy live.

The system is based on a neural network called "Skynet “92”, trained on more than 10 million hours of gameplays by speedrunners and 87 VHS of Sunday gamers. It can predict your movements with an accuracy rate of 99.7%, unless you're playing Aladdin on the Mega Drive, in which case it freezes on the selection screen and asks:

"Are you sure you don't want to run the SNES version?"

An error message that was not an isolated case, the fault of the AI's relative youth and unexpected behaviour that had to be learned to code.

Bkg2k explains the development challenges:

"The biggest challenge was designing an AI engine capable of emulating human frustration. We had to train our network on hours of bad players' gameplays, analysing every mistake, every missed jump, every stupid game over. But sometimes that wasn't enough. "

"AI also has its limits. For example, on all the Atari ST games, it refused to advance beyond the first few levels, telling us: "No game detected". Today, Recays is the first game to use an AI."

"Today, Recalbox AI is ready, and we're proud to have developed the first artificial intelligence that not only plays better than you, but also judges you in real time".

An AI that plays better than you... and judges you

Recalbox AI also uses a frame-perfect automation engine that can execute ultra-precise combos down to the microsecond.

And if you're at the end of your rope, we've developed a "Rage Quit Anticipation ’ mode that detects signs of frustration and automatically activates an auto-save before you rage-quit a game.

So, are you ready to let Recalbox AI take control and let you shine in your favourite retro games?

With this cutting-edge technology, you'll no longer have to suffer repeated failures, and the AI will make sure you look like a pro, even if you've never completed a game without a cheat.

This is the end of game overs... and excuses.

It's up to you!