By Jay Peters
Publication Date: 2026-01-29 17:00:00
This week, a new generative AI tool from Google let me create bad knockoffs of 3D Nintendo worlds.
Check out my version of something like Super Mario 64:
I didn’t like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, but it’s better than my version of a Metroid Prime experience:
Or how about my take on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, complete with a paraglider (and, briefly, a second Link):
It was all possible thanks to Project Genie, an experimental research prototype that Google gave me access to this week, though I don’t think I’m using it in exactly the way Google intended.
Google DeepMind has been putting a lot of effort into building its AI “world” models that can generate virtual interactive spaces with text or images as prompts. The company announced its impressive-looking Genie 3 model last year, but it was only available as “a limited research preview” at the time. Project Genie, which will be rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US starting today, will be the…
