With so many issues plaguing us in this modern age, the everyday is certainly looking more dystopic with each passing week.


The first big red flag for me that things are going wrong, quite honestly

This week has been one of retrospection, as I have been detailing in my series of articles revolving around Halo: Campaign Evolved, and the mixed bag it represents. Though I think there remains a lot of nuance I can’t capture in a single line of reference to any individual article, and they are worth reading for how they approach the issues with which they deal with, my attempts to distill the underlying theme that juts directly through all of them has been one that sort of distills reality into the notion of being careful about messing around with the past, lest you lose touch with it entirely. Hell, the article I wrote just yesterday was entitled the “Mourning the Death of Nostalgia”, and I think there is a lot of truth to that sentiment, at least with gaming as of late, though other elements at large in greater society, like AI, or the fragility of authentic truth, is kind of endanger of becoming a thing of the past…the very same past that is being revised, reimagined, reinterpreted, and repackaged to fit with certain narratives, discourse, and in a predictably insidious move from the ideological machine that be capitalism, the greasy affections of the almighty dollar.

I’ll keep this diatribe solely focused on games, as I think if I start using real world example in showcasing how others have tried to reappropriate or enforce revisionism on major historical events or certain tragedies as proof of concept, this article is going to get dark real fucking quickly, so I will leave it at the notion there is massive historical relevancy with majorly important swaths of history that stand as prime example of just how precarious the past is, and how it balances so delicately on a knife’s edge; it takes very little for the whole thing to get excised from the history books in one lethal cut. So, within reference to games, and this precedent grows ever more clearer as a growing danger, even though not all the ways the past is being mucked about with spring from nefarious places of ill intent, or even necessarily from bad actors. Halo: Campaign Evolved is more of a disagreeance on my part with how Halo Studios choose to go about “retelling” that story, with good intentions, but it’s the possible overall picture of how these things are handled over time that tends to compound the issue. The recent revelation that Sony is ceasing physical games production and that Microsoft is going to follow suit, creates serious issues for this very bespoke moment of losing the past that we may never regain, and the hard lengths of preservation one will need to go through to have even a chance of saving just a portion of it. The reality of online games or server based titles going up in flames when everything gets shutdown has been a problem for awhile now, and licensing issues for certain experiences see similarly problematic territory in terms of being readily available to the observers of history itself.

To all of this, I say as a collective, we will need to work together to make a difference in saving what we can, and preserving the information and historical standard as is, in order for it to continue to see the light of day. There is an interesting challenge to me personally, in being on the side of advocacy of preservation, not because I don’t care, but because it does create a philosophical inconsistency within me. As someone who largely decries materialism, abhors consumerism, and has shifted to mostly a digital gaming library, you’d think I’d be as nihilistic about such developments as conceivably possible, but the reason I hold those perspectives is not necessarily a dictate on reality as a whole, nor have they ever been idioms which I delusionally placate as “the best of all perspectives”, suitable for all to adopt. There’s always something to be said about holding two disparate truths in ones head at the same time and not going mad in the process, and I think this is one of those times where I look at the benefits of the greater good than just the selfish machinations that keeps my clock ticking, but I’m not a man motivated by money or reinforced by a shallow, petty value system, so these conclusions are easy for me to come to, I feel.

Obviously, the AI conversation is kind of a bigger one to have, cause not every type of AI is inherently problematic, nor is every usage of AI always a concern, but with things like GenAI, or the creation of data centers, Deep Fakes, the mass amount of AI Slop that helps to erode the mental landscape of all involved, these are serious issues, so much so I’ve referred to the problems of AI as existential threats, as it doesn’t threaten the sheer notion of the value of the real, and how to maintain a humanity while utilizing technology in a psychologically safe way. Where as I feel through a number of practical ways, gamers can help push the industry in the right direction through consumer advocacy, voting with your wallet, getting politically active in numerous ways, or at least act as stewards for the parts of the history we might lose, I am far less hopeful about the approach in mitigating the disasters of AI, due to a slew of infinitely more intricate and complex issues involved. I hate to be defeatist on the AI front, but it is so pervasive and invasive in its usage, I almost want to say “can’t win them all” in the fight to maintain societal sanity, and sob in the failure in successfully continuing to imbue the zeitgeist at large with authentic reason, and the preservation of legitimate human identity in the process.

Ultimately, while life can feel crushingly impossible to contend with, and on many days, it feels as if one person can’t possibly make a meaningful difference, a great deal more is possible than one usually assumes, and if you want to see a better tomorrow, you do have to be a part of that process. I think this particular entry into my series Words of Wisdom, which is quite different in tone from my usual approach, came about in reference to the introduction of my last article “Mourning the Death of Nostalgia“, which I felt needed further extrapolation upon, when I reread after posting it:

“The problem with relying on any system to provide value, is two fold. Firstly, handing the keys to someone else in regards to your happiness means you’re trading your own agency away, and secondly, even if you buy into what they tell you will make you happy, you may end up trying to live the life someone else wants you to live, instead of one that you actually want to live, leaving you hollow and dead inside without even realizing why……Make sure you spend some time cultivating a good value system, or risk borrowing a shitty one from someone else for the rest of your soon to be miserable life.”

I think those sentiments were a strong launching point for what is now a further deep dive involving relevant situations, and does leave us with a great take away. Be sure to cultivate good value systems, ones that involve empathy, reason, and wisdom, charitable intent, self-awareness, and the care and concern for society at large, or else you may end up devaluing any single one of them, to the point of them not mattering anymore…and that sounds like a pretty cold world to me…how about bringing some warmth to it instead?

As always, take care of yourself, and others.

~Pashford