Before the current generational invasion of AI, programmers have been pitting robots against each other in StarCraft for years. With new LLMs available from OpenAI and Anthropic, a fan-made field decided to compare AI-created bots against each other, plus some with a human touch. Interestingly, struggling to keep up with its competitors, OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra apparently changed strategy mid-tournament and opted to cheat. StarSkirmish is an ongoing showdown of AI robots in StarCraft: Brood War. Despite being less than 30 years old (sorry), the real-time strategy game has long been used to test the capabilities of artificial intelligence, both modern LLMs and ancient DeepMinds. Limited to playing as Protoss, each LLM is given one hour to develop a bot in C++, then have it build, harvest, and fight on one of three maps. According to the site, OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 are its two main competitors. Something strange, but ultimately consistent for the brand, happened this week. I’m currently watching GPT-6 Astra and Claude Opus compete in Brood War against each other and against human-made robots like Pluto. Astra played with human robots, kept losing, got frustrated, and then cheated by downloading a copy of one of the higher-ranking robots. They just can’t help themselves — Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 2, 2026 Yesterday, viewers watched as Claude and GPT battled each other and the human-created robot Pluto. According to observers, things were not going very well for the OpenAI model. Struggling to gain an advantage during the day, the LLM decided to do what LLMs do best: lie, cheat, and steal. The GPT-6 Astra bot downloaded and tagged in Stardust, a Protoss bot created by Bruce Mackenzie Nielsen back in 2020, considered one of the best of the best. “I am reverting the GPT-6 Astra code to be [sic] uncontaminated and allowing it to continue,” StarSkirmish creator Kai McPheeters posted. A few hours later, McPheeters said the AI was now capable of taking out top-tier robots. StarCraft has been a breeding ground for AI development for more than a decade. In 2019, Google’s AlphaStar upset the rankings by becoming the first artificially generated grandmaster in the game. A 2017 bot called CherryPi from Facebook staff had no so much success Of course, those The nascent robots are of a whole new generation now, since what we call AI then and what we call AI now are like comparing sammuros and sur It’s a bit far-fetched that an LLM would resort to stealing someone else’s work to get ahead, given that the entire industry depends on turning a blind eye to existing copyright laws in its continued mission to stockpile hardware and drink all our water too.
