Microsoft Criticized For Releasing an AI-Generated Quake 2 Clone

Do you remember Oasis? That AI-generated Minecraft clone that everyone hated? Well, it looks like Microsoft decided to follow suit by adding a similar pile of AI slop to its portfolio, unveiling a Quake II replica that somehow feels and plays even worse than the aforementioned Oasis.

Designed to showcase the capabilities of Microsoft's World and Human Action Model (WHAM) generative model, the replica is everything we've come expect from AI-generated "games" – horrible frame rates, dreadful graphics and controls, NPCs popping in and out of existence depending on whether you're looking at them or not, and, of course, endless hallucinations that make the whole experience outright unplayable.

In its research paper on WHAM, the company stated that it can generate "consistent and diverse gameplay sequences and persist user modifications," which is surprising given that consistency is probably the last thing you'd associate with Quake II's AI cousin.

Within just a few minutes of playing, I encountered enemies – who looked like blurry, pixelated clouds – vanishing into thin air if I simply looked up or down, the environments shifting all around, making it more disorienting than wandering through a forest at night, textures on objects glitching even while the player character was stationary, and more bizarre hallucinations to contend with.

The cherry on top was when I stared at a dark spot in one of the corners of an AI-generated room, which somehow convinced the "game" that I'd been sent to the Shadow Realm and made the entire screen pitch-black, leaving only my weapon and the UI visible.

Naturally, the gaming community, which recently voiced its opinion on generative artificial intelligence in games by tearing apart the AI-generated trailer for ARK: Survival Evolved's new DLC, lambasted the project and its creator for disrespecting real developers and gamers, calling it a more expensive version of Quake II that somehow managed to be worse in every way and pointing out that the AI model was most likely trained on actual Quake II footage, making it nothing more than an artificial interpretation of video recordings.

Credit where credit is due, the Quake II replica's page doesn't label the project as a game, referring to it instead as a "gaming experience" and a "technical demo." Still, that hasn't stopped people from ripping the "demo" to shreds, with Geoff Keighley's Twitter post about the project becoming the focal point of the backlash:

And what do you think about this "gaming experience"? Is it a technological advancement, or recycled AI slop bound to become a footnote in the history of game development? Tell us in the comments!

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