Microsoft's AI-powered Quake 2 demo makes me sick, not just because it's wrong on every level, but because I literally felt queasy playing it

(Image credit: Microsoft)

We all know generative AI in video games is bad. It displaces human jobs, represents the very antithesis of art as a means of creative self expression, and is horrible for the environment. But even if you can get past the immense ethical problems, Microsoft's new AI-powered Quake 2 demo, part of its broader Copilot Gaming Experiences program, proves the technology just isn't there purely from a gameplay perspective.

I don't know what I expected when I booted up this browser-based, uh, experience, which Microsoft says "offers an early look at how generative AI can simulate interactive gameplay," but what I didn't expect were gently amorphous environments, enemies that literally fell apart when I walked past them, and WASD controls as the only input option. I still don't know if it's the god-awful frame rate or the aforementioned shapeless environments, but I was almost instantly nauseated playing the thing.

Yeah, I don't know what else to say here. This thing sucks. Not just from an ethical standpoint, from which it sucks majorly, but as a tech demo, as an experience, as a game. I don't want to ever play anything like that ever again. "By generating gameplay in real time, the underlying Muse shows how classic games like Quake II can be reimagined through modern AI techniques," Microsoft boasts, but if this indeed offers a peak behind the curtain at the potential for AI-generated video games, then that curtain needs to be boarded up with two-by-fours, locked up, and carefully guarded like it's shielding the world from a zombie outbreak. Just no, Microsoft. No on every level. Bad Microsoft.