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Remember Me – Living in an electronically manipulated world

by Han Cilliers (Lola) Posted Tuesday, February 12, 2013 8:55:28 AM

Remember Me looks to be a game that will pierce gamers’ imagination by displaying a world that is futuristic, yet imaginable. A world where the most valuable commodity is thought, where privacy is not a right but an item on sale and where freedom is but an illusion. The game holds the promise of being not only a smashing first-person action game, but also a game that will lay bare the underbelly of the ‘connected age’, the age we are being hurdled at with an alarming speed.

Game premise

You play as Nilin, a memory hunter on the run from her previous employers, the Mega Corporation called Memorise. The Corporation specializes in stealing, manipulating and invading people’s memories. Nilin joins an underground movement called the Errorists, together they oppose the onslaught on humanities most precious trait, our ability to remember –which enables us to form bonds, to experience nostalgia and to form an identity. In Remember Me, victims of memory bending start to lose their sense of self as a result of memory degradation. This is the side effect of living in a technology controlled world that the Errorists group is resisting.

Living in the grid

At first glance the world of Remember Me may sound extremely farfetched, but then I read an article on Forbes,”The World in 2033: Big Thinkers And Futurists Share Their Thoughts.” The article features some of the biggest thinkers of our time; one in particular caught my attention.

When asked how the world will look 20 years from now, Ray Kurzweil, director of engineer at Google made this fascinating prediction.

"We will be online all the time in virtual / augmented reality. We won’t be looking at devices such as tablets and phones. Rather, computer displays will be fully integrated with real reality. Three-dimensional pop ups in your visual field of view will give background information about the people you see, even a tip that someone just smiled at you while you weren’t looking. The virtual display can fully replace your real field of view putting you into a totally convincing fully immersive virtual environment. In these virtual environments, you can be a different person with a different body for each occasion. Your interactions with the realistic virtual projections of other people will also be completely convincing.

Search engines won’t wait for you to ask for information. They will know you like a friend and will be aware of your concerns and interests at a detailed level. So it will pop up periodically and offer something like “You’ve expressed concern about Vitamin B12 getting into your cells, here’s new research from four seconds ago that provides a new approach to doing that.” You’ll be able to talk things over with your computer, clarifying your needs and requests just like you’re talking with a human assistant.

Artificially intelligent entities will be operating at human levels meaning they will have the same ability to get the joke, to be funny, to be sexy, to be romantic. However, the primary application of this technology will be to improve our own ability to do these things.”

He primarily sees a world where technology and organic life merge. A world where personal preferences, probable thinking process and needs are dictated by Artificial Intelligence. A world where humanity and AI reached a symbiosis.

Notice the Sensen device, short for Sensation Engine that fits on the back of the neck. It’s an implant that serves as an interface between the user and the wired world. It can therefore be hacked.

My question is, like in Remember Me, when technology gives with one hand, what is it taking with the other hand? I hope the game highlights these aspects and explores its consequences. What are your thoughts on living in a completely connected world?

Remember Me is planned for a 2013 release on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Check out the latest Remember Me video, although it centers on the music of the game, you get a glimpse of the technology infused world Kurzweil depicted.