With DLSS 5 getting added to more games over time, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach director and Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has revealed some more of his thoughts on generative AI technology and its role in game development. During a recent episode of the Koji10 podcast, Kojima spoke about his “mixed feelings” regarding the tech, since he can see how useful it can be but isn’t comfortable with his work being changed by it.
“As a creator, I have mixed feelings about this technology. AI is good at bringing old photographs to life or adding color to them, right? I think we might stop doing remakes one day. People still restore old films in 4K by hand, for instance. AI could do that easily.”
He spoke about some of the smaller details that he decided during the development of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and how generative AI technology can lose much of the artist’s intent when reinterpreting these scenes by, for example, changing the lighting.
“As the person who made the original, I wouldn’t want someone changing it too much. There was a reason I chose a particular lighting setup. It would be different if AI understood those intentions.”
On the subject of generative AI being able to change things in games without too much input or handholding, Kojima said, “I wouldn’t like that. Unless I was controlling the AI in my own work, that may be different. I don’t know, though.” Ultimately, he isn’t quite sure whether technologies like DLSS 5 will play a major role in game development at Kojima Productions going forward.
However, he does accept that “this will probably become standard” in the industry. “Maybe AI will eventually do all that automatically,” he said on the subject of using the technology to replace engineers and production teams across various disciplines. “In a hundred years, the resolution may be even higher. But I don’t much like the idea.”
Over the years, Kojima has had plenty to say on the subject of AI taking over the world through a number of his games, with the two most noteworthy examples being Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Both titles involve an enigmatic group of sentient AIs that have been secretly controlling various aspects of the world, from MGS2’s S3 Plan to the Sons of Patriot system in MGS4. Whether we will see these themes pop up again in Kojima Productions’ next espionage title, Physint, remains to be seen.
As for DLSS 5, the technology officially made its debut with the release of NBA 2K27 last month. The technology has seen plenty of criticism since it was first unveiled earlier this year, as the showcase presentation revealed that it would bring about several changes to how various characters looked. One of the big examples of this was how it could change the appearance of Resident Evil Requiem protagonist Grace Ashcroft.
In response to this criticism, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that he “doesn’t love AI slop” and that DLSS 5 will be different from typical AI-generated images.
