Sonnet 5 vs Opus 4.8: I Made Both Build a Full RTS Game
In this video we answer the question - Is Sonnet 5 Any Good at Agentic Coding? We'll also compare it to Opus 4.8 on a real coding task. 🚀 My AI coding courses, live Q&A, weekly builder challenges, direct access to me, and a serious builder community: https://skool.com/agentic-labs 🎁 Get the free 7-Day AI Builder Challenge + resources for this video: https://skool.com/leonvanzyl In this video, I put Claude Sonnet 5 head to head against Claude Opus 4.8 by asking each model (running in Claude Code's Ultra Code mode) to build a full Age of Empires clone in the browser. Here is the twist: before building the game, each model first has to build its own game engine and its own developer tools, like an asset viewer, an animation preview, and a map editor, to work around agent limitations like browser frame rates. You'll learn how to get coding agents to build tools around their own weaknesses, how Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.8 stack up on a real agentic coding task, and why this tool building approach produces far better results using Claude Code. =========================== Resources Mentioned =========================== 📦 Source code, prompts, workflows + peer discussion: https://skool.com/leonvanzyl =========================== Watch This Next =========================== ▶️ Claude Code Pro Workflow: https://youtu.be/zVZotTk6ZWU =========================== Go Deeper with Agentic Labs =========================== 🧪 AI coding courses, live Q&A, weekly builder challenges, direct access to me, and a serious builder community: https://skool.com/agentic-labs =========================== Subscribe / Connect =========================== Subscribe for practical AI building, agentic coding, automation, and real app builds: https://www.youtube.com/@leonvanzyl?sub_confirmation=1 Business & sponsorship enquiries: leon@cognaitiv.ai =========================== Question =========================== What are you building with Claude Code right now, and are you team Sonnet 5 or team Opus 4.8? ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 Sonnet 5 Vs Opus 4.8 0:37 The Game Engine Twist 0:52 Why Agents Build Tools 2:44 The Sonnet 5 Prompt 3:37 Running Both Models 4:31 Sonnet 5 Gameplay 5:22 Sonnet 5 Toolset 6:31 Opus 4.8 Gameplay 7:37 Opus 4.8 Toolset 8:02 The Verdict 8:28 Join Agentic Labs =========================== About This Video =========================== In this video, I show you how to get a coding agent to build its own game engine and tooling and then build a complete browser game, using Claude Code with Sonnet 5 and Opus 4.8. This tutorial is for developers, AI builders, and serious no-code/low-code builders who want practical workflows for building real apps, AI agents, automations, and coding systems. On this channel, I share practical AI engineering and agentic coding workflows using tools like Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, Cursor, n8n, Next.js, MCP, local AI models, and modern AI development workflows. #agenticcoding #claudecode #aicoding
