Hideo Kojima has never done things by the book. I missed most of his revered games that were released when I was a child thanks to the fact I was solely raised on Nintendo hardware, but I’m eagerly anticipating the release of theMetal Gear Solid Master Collectionnext month for the opportunity to dive into some key pieces of gaming history.
My first experience of Kojima’s work wasDeath Stranding. Uncanny and innovative in equal measure, I was somehow entranced by Norman Reedus’ glorified Deliveroo driver simulator – especially the balance mechanics – and the attempts at creating a new genre, known as the ‘strand game’.
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The concept of a strand game is the implementation of social elements. Death Stranding’s world is filled with aids from other players, ladders placed across awkward crevasses and the like, something which no other game has tried before andonly one has since. Kojima has previous for innovating in games, for better and for worse, be it Metal Gear Solid 3’s three-minute ladder climb that is debatably a metaphor for Snake’s journey, or a boss dying of old age, or the infamous memory card trick. These are unique and creative mechanics that have transcended their games to achieve folkloric status in the medium, to the extent that I, who have not played a single Metal Gear game, could list Kojima’s innovations off the top of my head.
There are limits to innovation, though, and fans are worried by a cryptic post that the veteran developer made on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Gaming is a technology-dependent medium that can evolve, but never degenerate,” Kojima writes. “So once you take your foot off the technological ladder, you will never be able to climb it again. If you take your eyes off the ladder for even a moment, you will find that the times have moved up several steps. If you are only focused on the horizontal expansion, you are in danger.”
It’s a sentiment that makes sense given Kojima’s past. He’s not a developer who’s ever stood still, and Death Stranding’s mixed reception is a testament to that. However, in 2023, calls of evolving technology can be a telltale sign that someone is embracing AI.
We all know that, in video games,there is good AI and bad AI. The good AI is the stuff that controls enemy NPCs, that makes their walking patterns unpredictable, and immerses you in the game. It’s a computerised Dungeon Master that saves companies from employing one person per shipped game to manually control every grunt and boss or whatever the alternative is. It’s what makes NPCs respond to you intelligently and seem to react to what you say and do. It’s been around for years and, importantly, isn’t putting anyone out of a job.
Then there’s the bad AI. The bad AI is the kind that could cause concept artists working on Overwatch 2 to lose their jobs because Activision Blizzard believes a computer program can do things better (read: cheaper). It’s the kind of thing that Ubisoft is embracing to auto-generate ghostwritten dialogue for NPCs, putting the livelihoods of writers at risk. It’s something used by companies to cut costs and hire fewer developers, and it should not be lauded as some kind of technological revolution.
I really hope Hideo Kojima is not embracing these practices in Death Stranding 2, but his social media post has all the hallmarks of someone brandishing anti-worker technology as a kind of wonderful innovation. The same people were on the blockchain bandwagon, then moved onto NFTs before their value plummeted dramatically, before pitching their tents in the metaverse. Decentraland, one of the biggest metaverses with a purported value of $1 billion, was found to havejust 38 active daily usersin a study last year.
AI is the latest fad, but aside from just stealing from artists, writers, and developers as NFTs did, it’s actively taking their jobs. Popular AI sites like ChatGPT are little more than glorified autocomplete machines, scraping the internet for other peoples’ words and arranging them in a new way, often missing information or getting facts completely wrong in the process. AI art generators do the same thing, ignoring all copyright laws while spinning up some ‘what if Wes Anderson directed The Lord of the Rings’ bullshit intended to give the user their five seconds of social media fame and nothing more. There’s no soul to AI created work, no creativity, and no intention.
That’s why I hope Kojima isn’t embracing AI for Death Stranding 2, or any other game. His creativity is encased inside his skull and realised by teams of hard-working developers who iterate on those ideas and add their own. AI could put Solid Snake in Fortnite, I’m sure, but it could never create a new Metal Gear game. With enough prompts, AI could approximate a sequel, but it would be a parody of Metal Gear, an amalgamation of what has come before without new ideas of its own. It would be content for content’s sake.
I refute the idea that Hideo Kojima is some kind of mastermind who single-handedly put together masterpiece after masterpiece, but his mind is greater than that of any AI, even one that he might create. Because every mind on this planet is greater than AI. Every person is more creative than a computer, and can create more intentional, meaningful art because of their humanity. The so-called AI revolution is a bandwagon that I hope Kojima hasn’t jumped on, because any revolution that prioritises corporate profits over worker rights is nothing of the sort.
