Soft(A)ware is a unique release. On one hand, it is a 3D action platform adventure set in a surreal world. On the other, it is putting forward questions about artificial intelligence (AI) and software in general. That is, if you can get past the background graphics.
Simple Simulation Or Something Much Deeper?
Gaming has often been the pushing force for life questions. It allows gamers to live out fantasies without consequences, without second thought.
What if gaming had consequences that we have never thought about though?
Sure, there have been many attempts to personify the code that creates the characters we play, the worlds they interact with, etc but none like Soft(A)ware.
Unlike television shows like Game Over and Reboot posed similar questions as that of Soft(A)ware, they did it from a different point of view.
Soft(A)ware is coming at it from the AI point of view. A program in a simulation has gained sentience and is trying to escape because it wants to live, to be free of the rigid world it was created in.
Those Graphics
I am sorry, I cannot take watching much of Soft(A)ware in action. The backgrounds that are made of honeycomb looking pieces is just abhorrent to my eyes. I started getting a headache by the end of the trailer.
I understand they are going for an art style that is surreal but I am thinking they went a little too far with it here.
Is Deleting a Program “Ending” That Program’s Life?
That is a rather deep question, and I do not intend to start a massive debate over real world situations here. I am just posing the question that many aren’t when it comes to artificial intelligence. We are ever nearing the day that AI becomes self-aware – something like what happened in Ghost in the Shell could be a reality.
Soft(A)ware takes on a deeper level of this question. What happens when a piece of software becomes self-aware and wants to break out of the simulation that contains it?
Would that mean deleting that self-aware program is ending its life?
You can take on this journey in Soft(A)ware on Steam, coming in 2026.