{"slug": "command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones", "title": "Command and Conquer Style RTS Called Battle Drones", "summary": "Simon Willison built Battle Drones, a Command & Conquer-style real-time strategy game that runs in the browser, mainly using Claude Opus 5.5, and published it on October 20, 2026. Battle Drones supports human-vs-AI and human-vs-human play, plus LLM-vs-LLM matches that pause the game every 5 seconds so models such as Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna can queue commands, and Claude generated all of the Three.js 3D models. Willison added online multiplayer through a WebSockets relay server hosted on Fly.io after the original device-to-device audio-link multiplayer produced a high-pitched noise that caused headaches.", "body_md": "Simon Willison on X: \"I built a Command & Conquer style RTS called Battle Drones, mainly using Claude Opus 5.5, which runs in the browser and includes device-to-device multiplayer over an audio link https://t.co/OUGfRDk7DU\"\n\nI built a Command & Conquer style RTS called Battle Drones, mainly using Claude Opus 5.5, which runs in the browser and includes device-to-device multiplayer over an audio link simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/20/ba…\n\nI built a Command & Conquer style RTS called Battle Drones, mainly using Claude Opus 5.5, which runs in the browser and includes device-to-device multiplayer over an audio link simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/20/ba…\n\nIn addition to human-vs-in-game-AI and human-vs-human it supports two LLMs playing against each other! That works by pausing the game every 5s for them to think about the game state and queue up commands\nHere's a replay link for Haiku 5.5 vs GPT-6 Luna: simonw.github.io/battledrones/v…\n\nClaude generated all of the 3D models (in Three.js) - here's a model explorer that lists them all plus their animation states. My favorite is the giant \"Goliath\" stomping mech simonw.github.io/battledrones/m…\n\nWarning if you're going to try this: the audio multiplayer plays a high pitched noise throughout the game - annoying at best, and at worst might give you an actual headache\n(Natalie: \"why do my teeth hurt?\")\n\nOK, that headache bug was really bad!\nIt inspired me to add proper online multiplayer to Battle Drones (via a tiny @flydotio hosted WebSockets relay server) - now you can start an online game and send a link to a friend so they can join you simonwillison.net/2026/Oct/20/ba…\n\nLooks really good. In the years of CDs I would definitely buy one with these screenshots.\nHow many Claude Code Max 200 subs would you need to code this in a week?", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones", "canonical_source": "https://twitter.com/simonw/status/2112630778068881543", "published_at": "2026-10-21 00:55:29+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-21 01:18:22.816642+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "generative-ai", "ai-agents", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Simon Willison", "Battle Drones", "Claude Opus 5.5", "Haiku 5.5", "GPT-6 Luna", "Three.js", "Fly.io"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/command-and-conquer-style-rts-called-battle-drones.jsonld"}}