What a game...
I've just finished a second playthrough of Detroit: Become Human, my first playthrough was, well, a bit of a mess.
Managed to get everyone through it this time, and got everyone a happy ending (apart from Jerry. I'm so sorry Jerry.)
But one thing I've always loved about this game is the main menu -
This - This needs to be studied. It's equally as unnerving as it is genius. To have interactions with her ( it? I don't know, it makes me so confused ) where she asks things like 'is it possible for machines and humans to be friends?' or ' do you think machines have the capacity for love?' before then deciding the fate of the characters in the game, all of which are androids, just fucking hits different in the age of AI.
I love the characters in the game. Their stories and character are well written, and full of moral ambiguity, and I want them to succeed.
But, in the real world, I'm watching AI try to take things that are intrinsically human like art, music, poetry and creative writing and regurgitate it in to something that is missing that core aspect - that spark - that really makes a piece of art sing through the ages, or move the soul, or spur people in to action. Or just inspire more art.
It's near impossible to define that spark. Many better people than I have tried, and come up empty handed. Whatever you believe - that the spark is divine or neural, a gift or a curse - one thing we all know, somehow, is that it's human.
What Detroit: Become Human excels at (seriously this game's writing is criminally underrated) is making you ask the question 'can the spark that makes us human create that spark in something else? and if so, what are the consequences of that?'
I don't really have an answer. I don't think anyone does. I'm an Atheist, and I like to think we evolved to be creative for some reason (again, I'm sure someone else more intelligent than I has the answer - or maybe they don't? who knows.) and that reason is integral to our humanity. AI, and all the shit that comes with it will degrade that. It's already happening. At this point it's inexorable, I think, though I hope I'm wrong.
All this to say; I walked away from my second playthrough, where I made sure all my android characters survived and found peace and equality, feeling like a traitor to my species. Whereas in my first playthrough, where all my android characters died and had shitty endings, I felt sad about their fates.
If that's not the mark of an excellently written game, then I don't know what is, and I urge anyone who hasn't played it yet to experience it.
My next game in my ever growing list (Steam, stop with the sales already - my library is already full of 'I'll play that next' games :D) is going to be Tell Tale's The Walking Dead. I played the first two seasons way back when they came out, but for some reason never played the others. I picked them all up in a sale, and Detroit: Become Human has reignited my point and click narrative game fire - so I'm finally going to see how Clementine's story ends.
It's going to be depressing, isn't it?