Opinion: Stranger Than Heaven’s Tupac is digital necromancy

This June saw the return of the Summer Games Fest, an annual event held since 2020 to showcase a large slate of upcoming gaming releases. And this year’s event was the best one so far, packed with plenty of exciting announcements, but also many to tilt your head. The one that stuck out to me the most is Stranger than Heaven, RGG Studios’ next project. Earlier this year we got a trailer showcasing the cast and story so good that it managed to win back droves of disillusioned fans of the Yakuza franchise after several questionable design choices in recent entries and the controversies swarming Yakuza Kiwami 3. The SGF trailer was largely solid, but had one major surprise at the end – the reveal of a face-scanned Tupac Shakur as a character. This has prompted immediate and immense discussion online about the ethics of this with many, including myself, feeling incredibly uneasy.

Tupac’s legacy as one of the most iconic rappers of all time cannot be understated, with his influence on West Coast rap being especially major. So, on the surface, it makes sense to add him into a game all about music, which already features prominent musicians like fellow West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg (alongside Ado and Tori Kelly). The situation becomes more questionable, however, when you remember that Tupac was killed 30 years ago. To essentially revive the dead for what is ultimately marketing feels disrespectful at best. Tupac’s image itself has already been heavily commercialised over the years with the infamous Coachella hologram in 2012 and a swarm of unintentionally sardonic-in-name posthumous albums which included songs he never intended to release, but this feels even more egregious than previous instances.

Not only that, but this isn’t even the first time Stranger Than Heaven has done this. Bunta Sugawara is also face-scanned into the project, being a popular Japanese actor known for the Battles Without Honour and Humanity series, which is often likened as the Japanese  Godfather to the point where it would be the equivalent of scanning Marlon Brando into a game from the Mafia series. Sugawara passed in 2014, though that situation is a little different: while it is still undeniably questionable, Sugawara’s family approved the scan and he is voiced by Takashi Ukaji, a close friend and personal assistant of Sugawara.

Tupac’s likeness was used with permission from his estate, ran by Tom Whalley, a record executive and not a member of his family. Tupac’s sister Sekiywa Shakur has been engaging in ongoing litigation over regaining control of his estate. As such, the situation feels far more insidious than with Sugawara. Furthermore, Tupac’s relationship with Snoop Dogg has also been largely negative shortly before his death and, while I cannot claim to know either personally, featuring an anti-capitalist as a marketing ploy is very bizarre.

It sparks several questions. For one, why couldn’t they have gotten a different rapper involved? RZA of Wu-Tang Clan fame would be an excellent choice, especially as he was prominent in the same era as Tupac. Rakim similarly as one of the most influential rappers would’ve been an interesting choice. If they didn’t want to use more older rappers from the 90s, there are many from the 2010s onwards to choose from, including A$AP Rocky, who recently found acting success in major film roles and delivered a great performance in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

Also, what does this mean for the future? Face-scanning actors into games is certainly not a foreign concept as Hideo Kojima is all too familiar with it in Death Stranding, and even previous Yakuza games have done so with Takuya Kimura playing the protagonist in the Judgment duology. But bringing back a dead person to scan in feels morally ambiguous, even if with the case of Sugawara, where the family gave their permission. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is facing backlash in the same week for scanning the late Toshiro Mifune as the lead, which is similarly bizarre to Sugawara.

So, when does it stop? Where is a line drawn? With the advent of generative AI, who’s to say that AI won’t be used in lieu of an impersonator, to keep parading these people around long after they are dead? Recently, the late Val Kilmer has been slated to posthumously appear in As Deep as the Grave as an AI reconstruction of himself, which is nothing short of terrifying. The dead are no longer able to rest because their lives are employed as marketing.

There’s a clear, discernible difference between a homage and what is effectively digital necromancy. Yakuza is no stranger to homages with references to Steven Spielberg and Michael Jackson appearing across the franchise. However, they didn’t use their likenesses, instead merely fun and respectful nods. In a similar vein, Mortal Man and Reincarnated are songs by Kendrick Lamar which pay tribute to Tupac, the former using archival audio (with notable approval from Tupac’s mother Afeni) to signify to Lamar how Tupac truly is dead and he can’t seek answers from him anymore, needing to go his own way. The latter also sees Lamar respectfully utilising his cadence to talk about faith.

The scanning of faces is more akin to what Disney did with Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Cushing passed before Rogue One released and his face was scanned onto another actor, resulting in a frankly uncanny-looking mess. The same happened again from Disney with a de-aged Mark Hamill being scanned in for The Mandalorian instead of casting someone who looks like him and it similarly looked awful. Soon enough, dead individuals will effectively be revived as digital husks, an event eerily like a major plot point in Cyberpunk 2077 involving souls being trapped in a digital afterlife unable to die and eventually taking over those already living. Cyberpunk also features a face-scanned actor, Keanu Reeves, who is importantly still alive to consent and act in the game himself.

Continuation of this digital necromancy will result in a constant cycle of nostalgia with studios and companies dangling corpses in front of their audiences to get them interested. What should’ve been extremely cool now feels deeply uncomfortable and, while I am still excited for Stranger than Heaven, I would be lying if I said my excitement didn’t plummet considerably after this distasteful announcement, all the while hinting at a much bleaker future to come.