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Tech

The Most Beautiful and Terrifying Predictions of Post-Humanity In Video Games

From 'Call of Duty' to 'Deus Ex', augmentation either enhances our humanity or erodes it.
​Image: Eidos Montréal

​I'm Pvt. Jack Mitchell of the US Marines, peering over a chasm between two destroyed buildings in Seoul, South Korea. I inch a few feet away from the window to get a running start, while a fellow Marine named Jackson mutters, "You only live once." I run, jump out the window—then, "SWOOSH!"

The jets are part of my exosuit and stabilize my movements, allowing me to hover to the second demolished building unscathed. After landing, I run to another broken window and jump out, this time descending safely to ground-level.

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Exosuits are a new mechanic in the Call of Duty series. In Advanced Warfare, the most recent game, they boost Mitchell's movement and speed, equipping him with cat-like reflexes and the ability to jump tall heights. But it's just one of his mechanical advantages—the other, a prosthetic arm gifted to him by a private military contractor named ATLAS, after Mitchell's arm was severed in an attempt to save the corporation's CEO's son.

Depictions of post-humanity are pretty much part and parcel in video games—and mechs and exosuits are just the start. In some games, augmentations are a sign of progress, and in the world of Mass Effect, commonplace. In others, augmentations erode our humanity and drive us to oppression and violence, as seen in the first BioShock game where genetic mutation becomes a serious addiction.

One popular, classic archetype is man-versus-machine, where technological advances and biological engineering are shown to come at a villainous price—machines that are too perfect, to the point of frightening us with their inability to be soft, caring entities. In the upcoming Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, for example, a "mechanical apartheid" divides society. There are those who use cybernetics, nanites, and implants to augment their bodies, and those who do not.

Part of the ethical dilemma in the Deus Ex series is based on consent and choice. For some, neurological augmentation is elective—anyone who can afford to pay can get ahead, creating a new class of elite transhumans, and consequently a slew of social issues which frame the backstory of the game. For others, it's a necessity; Adam Jensen was brought back to life with cybernetic implants after a shot to the head in the series' third game, Human Revolution. And for others, those who can't afford them, repairing a physical disability or injury with augmentation leads to a lifetime of paying for expensive anti-rejection drugs.

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In both games, you don't just use technology—you depend on it. The more you equip, the better and more powerful you become, creating a cycle to desire more. Even in the difficult settings of Human Revolution, outside of the game itself, "easy" appears with a photo of Jensen without any modifications; "normal" shows him with small implants on the sides of his face; and "difficult" is the final form of cyborg Jensen, equipped with eye implants, and captioned "Give Me Deus Ex."

Becoming transhuman is suggested to be the hardest setting—and at the same time, a more appealing route than that of a boring non-augmented human.

The game isn't exactly wrong. Although the plots of Advanced Warfare and the Deus Ex series ultimately depict biological engineering as "bad"—especially in the hands of greedy corporations—it's hard to to deny that superhuman powers bestowed by augmentations make these game fun as hell. As suggested in Advanced Warfare's tagline, "Power Changes Everything," the access to technology is a literal game changer to improve strategies and physical performance, with the other side of the coin suggesting that the humans gaining power can change everything for the worse.

Towards the end of Advanced Warfare, Mitchell is without his Exosuit and his prosthetic arm is busted. He struggles with an enemy, who is hanging off the ledge and clutching to Mitchell's dead prosthetic arm, refusing to let go. In a moment of reverse cyborg castration anxiety, Mitchell severs his prosthetic arm with a knife, and watches the man fall to his death.

It's almost a call-back to nature at its most ruthless, where animals will chew off their own limbs stuck in metal traps. The fun of becoming a cyborg ninja reaches its end and Mitchell ultimately chooses to be a complete human—which, in this particular depiction of a post-human world, means freeing himself from the oppression of both exoskeletal and corporate, militarized machinery.

Goodbye, Meatbags is a series on Motherboard about the waning relevance of the human physical form. Follow along here.