Video games take place in settings that are similar to the real world, although they might be different versions of reality or visions of what may come. This often happens in the science fiction genre, mostly due to the nature of creating an interactive narrative that takes place later, but it happens in fantasy, real-time strategy, and god games.
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Sometimes a creative game describesfuture events with chilling accuracy, but it’s really just a matter of dumb luck or good writing, and it’s not always games that take place in the future that are the best at predicting it. All it takes is research and insight, not psychic powers, to predict the future.
7Justin Trudeau Becomes PM Of Canada - Deus Ex Human Revolution (2011)
This game makes a few interesting predictions regarding certain political events, some of which came true. The most infamous of these is predicting the rise of Justin Trudeau to the office of Prime Minister of Canada, which seems oddly prescient but is only a surpriseto those who aren’t Canadian.
In the game, Trudeau is PM of Canada, but the game was released in 2011 and Trudeau wasn’t elected until 2015. Justin Trudeau was elected as a Member of Parliament before he was elected as PM. Being the son of former PM Pierre Trudeau, he wasn’t exactly a neophyte that come out of nowhere. Someone on the dev team was keeping an eye on international politics and used their knowledge to create a more immersive and realistic future.
6Live Service Games - World Of Warcraft Franchise
This is one of those times when the gaming industry predicted its own future. One of the first and most serious issues that earlyWoWhad to deal with was gold sellers, boosters, and friends sharing accounts in the time before bots, and the gaming population feared that Blizzard would be swayed by the smell of money and incrementally introduce their own system to get in on the racket.
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The concept of Live Service games to monetize all of the above was developed over several years. Their fears were correct, and nobody in the gaming community was surprised by the eventual capitulation.
5Algae-Based Fuel - Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990)
Game developer Hideo Kojima has earned a reputation for predicting the future in his games.Fans often point to thecreation of an algae-based fuel for part of the story inMetal Gear 2, which was launched in 1990, as one of these innovations, but the fact is that algae as a source of power or fuel is an idea that dates back to the 1940s.
The research into biofuels is nothing new, with all kinds of plants as subjects for possible sources of energy. In this case, it would be more accurate to say that Kojima was inspired by an obscure or exciting old discovery than the invention of something new.
4Mapping The Human Genome - Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (1999)
The Sid Meier franchise of RTS games retains its popularity for its realism and immersion. InAlpha Centauri, there’s a feature where players get to map out the human genome to get scientific achievements and other extra perks.
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In 1999, this was some innovative, scientific, and futuristic stuff, but although the knowledge was obscure it wasn’t new. Mapping the human genome had been an idea for years even before theHuman Genome Projectstarted their work in 1990, almost a decade before the game was launched. It might be more accurate to say thatAlpha Centauripredicted the rise of the science of Genomics.
3Predicting The Super Bowl Winner - Madden Franchise
This is an ongoing trend that’s been alive for years, and there are plenty of jokes and parodies that have surfaced as a part of the fun. However, too many people take the ability of the game to predict the winner as some sort of magical power when it’sjust a question of running the numbersand having a 50-50 chance.
Modern gamers might not be familiar with the business of what bookies do, or even what they are, but whatMaddendoes is nothing new to any of these people. It could be one of the world’s oldest pastimes, it’s just that computers do it now. Spend a weekend in Las Vegas and it’s easy to understand this isn’t a thrilling future prediction, it’s just a type of gambling.
2Fake News - Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001)
There’s a lot of prescient stuff in theMetal Gear Solidfranchise, but this isn’t one of them. What is called fake news today has an equally ugly history under another name - yellow journalism. Also known as tabloid journalism, it’s when the news is reported as sensationalist or biased to manipulate public opinion and sell more papers.
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One example of yellow journalism includes Joseph McCarthy using it to demonize so-called Communists, thus grossly amplifying the public’s fear of communism and blowing it out of proportion. All that’s new nowadays is that bots, social media, and influencers can spread fake news in addition to newspapers.
1The Metaverse - Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (2013)
The plot ofDevil Summoner: Soul Hackersincludes a virtual world called Paradigm X, controlled by a single big corporation and accessible only through a special type of currency. Ten years ago this might have been a new concept, but anyone who has been using the internet for more than ten years wasn’t surprised when Facebookbought the Oculus VR gaming systemand created the Metaverse.
Virtual reality has been around for a while, and although the technology and cost have made it more accessible to the general public, some gamers have already used their VR systems on MMORPGs and similar games. This is just a new name but it’s not a new thing and a fairly easy prediction to make.
