It brings me absolutely no pleasure to report that my GOAT may be washed, but someone has to. Hideo Kojima is a towering figure in the entertainment industry, responsible for the creation of the Metal Gear series and with it the entire stealth genre. His follow-up Death Stranding series, for all its excesses, embodies the exact kind of creativity-first, human-driven, straight-from-the-heart storytelling he's been championing his entire career.
His entire career until today, it seems. Kojima has teamed up with Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn (who previously appeared in both Death Strandings) and fashion brand Prada to deliver manmade horrors beyond our comprehension. Together, these great minds have combined their talents to produce… an AI-generated short film starring Refn and Kojima as retro-style astronauts. It's unclear what this has to do with Prada or how this is meant to make me spend money on their products.
Prada has dipped its toes into AI use before, and besides I'm not sure I could respect big fashion houses any less than I already do. Seeing Refn and Kojima enthusiastically take part in this is considerably more disheartening, though. Remember at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2, when the player is almost literally sat down and forced to listen to a monologue about how generative AI (25 years ago!) can only be used to further division and drown out authentic information? Remember the end of Death Stranding 2, where AI drives the world toward destruction and is only stopped by the wholly human act of creation? Apparently, the guy who wrote those scripts doesn't.
I don't think this is a full heel turn and PHYSINT is going to have AI voice acting or anything. It's just a deeply disappointing stumble to see, even if I'm sure Kojima has already forgotten about it and spent his Prada check on LEGOs.
