Did This Game Predict The Future?

Lately the idea that Metal Gear Solid 2 predicted the future has gained atraction on the internet. We can highlight how ahead of its time it was, addressing issues that today directly affect us as a society: information overload, artificial intelligence, algorithms and automation. And while it's true that the game anticipates several of these modern problems, it also revisits conflicts that have accompanied humanity for years.

After playing it for quite a while, it's clear to me that this game brilliantly works with deep philosophical ideas, real post-modern problems and a good techinal approach. For this reason, I would like to use this game as a `tool` in this post: its story, its legendary characters and its narrative make simple to explain concepts that the game itself exposes, and that, beyond fiction, have direct repercussions in our reality.

The game that has undoubtedly left a mark in gaming, but not only for its mechanics and technical aspects that are impressive. But also for its story itself.

One of the topics that often comes up in conversations with friends and peers is the future of AI, the flow of information, and the power of narratives. That’s part of what makes digging into this game so fascinating, it’s a lens for exploring the very real issues we’re facing today.

A Story Ahead of Its Time

What was once criticized by many has, over time, become celebrated for its prophetic nature. Hideo Kojima, the visionary game designer renowned for his intricate narratives and boundary pushing titles, released the second installment of the Metal Gear Solid series in 2001. Just minutes into the game, players are introduced to Raiden—a stark contrast to Solid Snake, the iconic hero of the saga who embodies the archetypal macho soldier from every war film we’ve ever seen. Raiden, by comparison, presents a more androgynous figure: a slender, almost feminine physique, a soft yet piercing voice, and no clear past. He’s hesitant, obedient, and constantly taking orders from a Colonel who communicates with him exclusively through the codec.

More than just a stealth game, Sons of Liberty is a social commentary disguised as an action adventure. Kojima uses an intelligent narrative, loaded with satire, to show the dangers that the digital age brings. He talks about information overload, how networks are manipulated, and the role that artificial intelligence is beginning to play in our lives. All that seemed like science fiction in 2001, today we live it every day.

The creation of MGS2 is the result of an amazing team that dedicated their time and energy to creating a genuinely unique video gaming experience. The game, which is sometimes praised as a masterpiece, is notable for its inventive mechanics, graphics, and configurable difficulty, but most significantly, it makes a daring social statement and breaches the fourth wall.

Following the massive success of the first game, it was inevitable that both Hideo Kojima and Konami would continue the Metal Gear saga. However, MGS2 hints at Kojima’s dissatisfaction with how the previous entry was received. That game carried clear anti-war themes, with Kojima’s stance as an author made abundantly clear throughout. But much of the player base seemed to overlook this message, focusing instead on what they perceived as a glorification of violence and the celebration of the classic action hero.

The story of MGS2 transports us to a world battling the emergence of GW, an artificial intelligence. Across both digital and analog mediums, this AI named after George Washington is entrusted with managing the flow of information by filtering, altering, and even deleting it. Even the entire U.S. military and its nuclear arsenal are under GW's control. All of this is planned by a covert group called the Patriots, whose ultimate objective is to control information in order to hold onto power.

We also learn about a group called Dead Cell, headed by Solidus Snake, who wants to create a new civilization called the Sons of Liberty in order to free humanity from this information control. Although this develops as the story's main issue, our quest starts with very little background information. At first, as Raiden, we are informed that our goal is to stop an ecological catastrophe at a facility. However, we gradually start to "take the red pill," revealing the Patriots' many layers of deceit and the actual intentions of each participant.

The game presents a remarkably futuristic depiction of today's reality. The danger of clinging to comforting ideologies, relying on artificial intelligence to validate our biases, and organizing our media consumption to fit into echo chambers, what some thinkers like Yuval Noah Harari (in his recent book Nexus) have described as the fragility of truth in algorithmic societies. Harari, in particular, warns of the growing influence of AI not only as an information tool, but as a creator and manipulator of information.

One main point in the plot is that our main source of information is Colonel Campbell, who communicates through the codec. But as the story progresses, we begin to question his reliability. Other characters challenge what we believe to be real, and each encounter deepens the narrative, drawing us into a layered and increasingly unsettling story about control, identity, and the very nature of truth.

Postmodernism in MGS2

One of the central ideas in Metal Gear Solid 2 is the constant questioning of truth. There are no pure heroes, no fully defined villains, and almost no information is reliable. This form of storytelling connects directly with postmodern thought, a philosophical current that rejects absolute truths and proposes that all reality is mediated by perceptions, narratives and power structures.

Kojima builds a game that breaks its own rules. What starts out as a typical action story with global threats, slowly turns into a maze of self-doubt. The Colonel who guides the player turns out to be an artificial intelligence. The missions are a simulation. The protagonist, Raiden, has no identity of his own: he was molded to follow a script.

This is what postmodernism constantly points out: that reality is fragile and often fabricated. The game disarms the classic narrative of the military hero who saves the world. Instead, it shows a system that controls the flow of information to maintain order, deciding which data is worth preserving and which should be eliminated. That always win.

The “S3 Plan”, which seeks to replicate Solid Snake through training and manipulation, is a representation of how identities and truths can be constructed from narrative structures. The story does not seek to provide answers, but to leave open questions: who controls the information, who decides what is real, who decides what is real and what is not?

Today, where viral content, algorithms and artificial intelligence create digital realities in real time, the MGS2 approach becomes even more relevant. It's a warning about how easy it's to shape collective thinking when you control the medium through which information flows.

From Genes to Memes

In Metal Gear Solid saga, establishes a thematic arc that runs through the first four numbered installments, each focusing on a different form of manipulation: genetic, cultural, contextual and sensory. This narrative evolution not only follows a logical order, but reflects a growing concern for the role of the human being in a society increasingly mediated by external systems of control.

The first game in the saga revolves around genes. The protagonist, Solid Snake, is a clone. The conflict between him and Liquid is not only physical, but symbolic: the struggle to decide whether fate is written in DNA or whether there is room for free will. It's the eternal tension between biology and will. Snake represents that doubt: are we what we inherit or what we choose to be?

But in Metal Gear Solid 2, the focus turns to something more ethereal: memes, not in their superficial internet form, but as defined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976): cultural units that replicate, evolve and survive just like biological genes. Ideas, symbols, ways of thinking, behaviors... all these are also inherited, transmitted, and, most importantly, can be manipulated.

The narrative takes this idea to the extreme. In the game, the real antagonists are not terrorists or soldiers, but a set of artificial intelligences operating in the shadows that have taken on the task of deciding what information should be preserved and what should be discarded. This AI network acts as a cultural curator, filtering the memes that will be passed on to the next generation.

The message is clear and disturbing: in the digital age, information is not only power, it's the new genetic code. What we believe, what we share, even what we remember, can be altered, shaped or eliminated by structures we don't fully understand. The true weapon isn't just GW’s nuclear arsenal, it's control over the flow of information. And in our world, it's no different. Global corporations and nations recognize this, and they fiercely protect their dominance over data. The manipulation of narratives has become far more critical than conventional warfare.

Jean Baudrillard, postmodern philosopher, wrote about the concept of simulacrum, where reality is replaced by signs and representations that no longer refer to anything real. This happens in the game itself: Raiden lives a simulation, the Colonel is an AI, and his memories are manipulated. Nothing is authentic. Everything is staged. The idea of believe something without hesitate is far away of reality.

And in the meantime, the player, like Raiden, goes through that simulation believing he is in control.

This type of control, disguised as order and stability, is reminiscent of Foucault's concepts of biopower: the management of life, not through direct repression, but through networks that organize knowledge, normality, and behavior. In MGS2, AI does not need to kill to rule. It only needs to control information flows. What is remembered? What is forgotten? What is worth preserving? - Sounds familiar?

Manipulation is no longer in the genes. It's in the memes. And in a society where algorithms decide what we watch, what we think and who we listen to, that idea becomes more real with each interaction.

Information, Truth, and Control

The fundamental concept of information is complicated to define, there are more and more philosophers and biologists, and also some physicists, who consider that information is the most basic piece of reality more elementary than matter and energy. For example in computation information can be as amibiguous as data in bits that creates some value.

In everyday use, information is associated with human-created symbols such as the spoken or written word. However, information does not have to consist of human-created symbols; they can be part of less intrinsic symbolism such as peace and tolerance. For atronomers, the shape and movement of galaxies constitute crucial information for the history of the universe. For navigators, the North Star indicates which direction is north; for astrologers, the stars are a cosmic script that conveys information about the future of individuals and entire societies.

That is why defining information is a matter of perspective. For an astrologer and an astronomer the same stars have a very different meaning, however there is a reality that both must share.

In the end the information should be the representation of reality, as it's a representation become impossible that this is 1:1, but we should be as detailed as possible with the tools and difficulties we have. Filtering information is a global problem. What should the social network algorithm filter? What is its purpose? The algorithm may have the purpose to attract more people and make them use the application more regularly, it may have the purpose to make people post more. But this as we have been shown is very complex, it may be that the posts that the algorithm rewards the most are the most extreme and farthest from reality. Therefore this information from readers is not a representation, it's disinformation.

The flow of information should be as decentralized as possible, that way the control is not in a single algorithm, person or propaganda to follow. The objectives of this information should be as clear as possible. But what happens when the information is created at the moment and controlled by AI? the purposes of that entity different from any human reason would have the control of what we read and what we understand. That is where one of the biggest debates comes in, not only is it a problem to have a totalitarian state of information, but when it's governed by these intelligent agents that can work 24/7. It's a bigger issue than we can imagine and the full alignment of AI looks pretty far away.

Human Bias, Machine Bias

Ideological bias is a real thing. Not just in the content we consume, but in how it's presented and at what time. Algorithms are not neutral; they are designed to maximize retention, engagement, and often that means reinforcing what we already believe. Networks don't show you what you need to know, they show you what is most likely to make you stay. And that creates an invisible echo chamber where different ideas don't get in, or if they do, they do so distorted.

Raiden represents the average user: he enters confident, with a clear narrative, believing in a purposeful mission. But he soon realizes that his entire reality was constructed. The “S3 Plan” doesn't just want to turn him into a soldier; it wants to shape his thinking, his reactions, his decisions. It's training, but also conditioning.

And that's exactly what today's algorithms do: they shape preferences, tastes, ideology. There is no need for explicit censorship when you can bury an idea under tons of irrelevant content. Control is not felt, because it's disguised as choice. You think you decide, but you are only choosing from a menu curated by an intelligence you don't see.

The problem of identity is very serious, beyond algorithms controlling narratives and people trying to follow the rules of the algorithm to be rewarded. And extremist views on every topic in which you can participate - losing the real identify of someone is common - it's not bad to build our views, but blindly follow the propaganda of the day that is more trained and generates more retention.

The End of the world as we know?

We now live in a world saturated with fake news, deepfakes, echo chambers, and AI-generated content. It's no longer a question of whether information is manipulated it's about how much of it is, and by whom.

I think steps have been made, watermarking images and videos made by AI is something possible, although if the technologies are free to modify it will be a little more complicated. We will have to be more careful with our information, with what we consume and as we are the Raiden of our own history, not follow blind idelogies and understand our world as it is.

It’s also important to recognize that this is a global issue. We live in a hyperconnected web of nations, where every decision can ripple across the world. The responsible use of these technologies isn’t just a local concern it’s a global responsibility. We need to stay aware of how much control we’re handing over to automated systems. How much of our world is now governed by machines? Financial markets, political speeches, social media trends many of these are already being shaped, filtered, or even dictated by algorithms operating behind the scenes.

One of the incredible talks with the AI in MGS2:

Colonel (AI):

Rose (AI):

Colonel (AI):

Colonel (AI):

Rose (AI):

AI can still be a powerful tool for understanding reality. But alignment is crucial. Right now, many systems don’t need to be particularly advanced to manipulate public perception they just need to be optimized for clicks. Developers and corporations have a responsibility to pair technological advancement with ethical oversight. This is power, and with it comes risk.

The ethical use of these technologies is possible, and I am very excited about what we can achieve with them to avoid these same problems and a freer, more knowledgeable world. I hope that we continue to improve and find more and more ways to improve human lives. But also take into account so many problems that are still small but worsen day by day.

Our knowledge, ideas, and decisions yours, mine, everyone are shaped by computers and by other people. The books we read, the thinkers we admire, the blogs we follow, the posts we scroll past, the content generated by AI… all of it leaves a mark. Even this game, has shaped how I think—and even what I’ve written here.

The problem isn’t that we’re shaped. That’s inevitable. The real challenge is learning how to shape ourselves in return—to choose what we consume, to be aware of what influences us, and to take responsibility for how we let it define us.