If I were to name one thing that can keep me glued to my PC screen for hours, it would be gaming. And I majorly play story games. For me, they are an escape from a world that is always competing, always rushing, and always asking for more. Games, especially story-driven titles, offer the chance to carry out things at your own pace. It is a place where characters breathe, worlds react, and stories unfold slowly. But in times where almost every industry’s favourite word is turning out to be AI, what happens to this utopian world? Some feel that it will improve while others think that it will put gaming at risk. And I firmly belong in the second category.
When worlds start being generated instead of imagined, and characters start being assembled rather than written, the magic is likely to fade. And GTA 6 developers seem to agree with that. Perhaps this is why they have recently clarified that the world of the game is being designed by humans, not AI. And this is a good thing in general for gaming.
When GTA 6 made headlines for staying away from generative AI, it felt like a rare moment of restraint in an industry chasing speed. In an interview, Take Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick explained that Rockstar Games is not using AI to build the game’s world, characters, or story. And that choice matters more than you think.
GTA’s strength has never been scale alone. It is about timing, tone, and the small details that make its cities feel real. And these are exactly the things human designers obsess over. AI can generate streets, buildings, and NPCs, but it is doubtful if it can give them purpose. Rockstar’s approach is slower and more expensive, but it ensures that every location feels deliberate.
In a time where many studios are tempted to let software fill space quickly, this decision protects the emotional core of the game. It keeps GTA 6 grounded in human creativity, where stories are written with intent and worlds are shaped with care. For players who value immersion, this is exactly the kind of future gaming needs.
When we talk about AI in gaming, one example that instantly comes to mind is Krafton’s inZOI. The game is still in early access and is being improved everyday. It also has a loyal group of players defending it online, asking others to be patient and give it time. And this is what makes the situation more interesting. Over a year ago when its demo was yet to come out, inZOI was being talked about as a serious challenger to The Sims, a franchise that has dominated life simulation games for decades. But today, almost a year after being in pre-release, it is struggling to keep players engaged.
The problem is not that inZOI is broken. In fact, on a technical level, it works just fine. The visuals are impressive, the characters look realistic, and the systems underneath are clearly ambitious. But once you spend a few hours with the game, the cracks begin to show. The world feels static, characters go through the motions but their actions rarely feel meaningful, conversation options feel shallow, and the character’s expressions are barely there. Everything looks alive, yet nothing truly feels alive.
This is where heavy reliance on AI starts to hurt the experience. Much of inZOI’s content feels generated rather than designed. When interactions are driven by systems instead of intent, they lose personality. In a life simulation game, small human touches matter more than scale. A game like The Sims succeeded because its chaos, humour, and quirks came from deliberate design choices. But in the case of inZOI, despite its gorgeous graphics, the game often feels like it is trying to simulate life without understanding it. That disconnect is why many players drift away after the initial excitement wears off.
This is where everything circles back to why I play games in the first place. I do not load up a game to be impressed by how much content it can generate or how fast it can scale. I play to slow down, sit with the characters, absorb worlds, and feel like the time I am spending actually means something. Gaming works because someone, somewhere, cared enough to make intentional choices. They decided how a character reacts, why a street feels unsafe, or when silence is more powerful than dialogue.
AI, when pushed too far into the creative core, risks taking that away. It can replicate patterns, but it struggles to understand emotion. It can fill space, but it cannot always give it meaning. That is why GTA 6 choosing to stay human led feels reassuring. And that is why inZOI’s struggles feel like a warning sign rather than a failure.
Gaming does not need to be faster or bigger at any cost. It needs to remain personal. If games stop feeling like an escape and start feeling like products assembled by systems, something fundamental is lost. AI can assist, optimise, and support. But the soul of gaming, especially story games, still needs to come from people who understand why we escape into these worlds in the first place.
Also read: GTA 6 developers are excited about AI, but confirm no Gen AI is used in the game