Tupac’s presence in Stranger Than Heaven somehow gets even more bizarre after developer interview

Tupac is in Stranger Than Heaven, a game set in Samurai times, and not as a new character, but himself. That rivals Palpatine’s return for the title of weirdest choice, so the developers kindly answered some of the most pressing questions, which in turn raised even more questions.

GameInformer’s Brian Shea got to talk to the devs about some key points, like, what the hell is Tupac doing there? The devs explained that, I kid you not, it was Snoop Dogg’s idea, and it only gets weirder from there, because that’s not the Tupac we all know, that’s Tupac if he were alive 30 years after his death, even if in the past. You follow?

“But at the same time, we wanted to not kind of recreate who Tupac was when he passed away. We wanted to try to envision who Tupac might be now,”

And, in truth, a living and breathing Tupac in a game called Stranger Than Heaven is one way of making sure you mean it, sure, but at what cost? There are a bunch of ethical concerns that should be taken into account. Though RGG studio head Masayoshi explains no AI is at play here, and that he also got the approval of Tupac’s family to put him in the game, there’s still the matter that no one could have asked the man himself for obvious reasons, but that should probably be enough to let him rest in peace. Also, even if you don’t care for the man or his legacy, chances are your brain will have a hard time preventing Tupac Shakur from proving too distracting in that world.

Seeing Tupac revived as a hologram at Coachella back in 2012 was as cool as that festival could ever get; we saw an almost magical use of tech bring us a surprise performance out of someone who’d likely been doing exactly that if his life hadn’t been tragically cut short. Had the decision fallen on me, I wouldn’t have allowed for a dead person’s image to be used like that, but that was as respectful a “revival” as it could ever be. Seeing this man completely out of his element (and time), in a violent game, especially one supposedly depicting who he’d be if he had not died when he did, just feels wrong.

And the final question is, will Tupac’s presence, out of people’s love for him, or due to the reveal’s virality, translate into more sales for the game? Because if that turns out to be the case, we might be looking at a sequel starring John Lennon, and I really don’t want that— unless he plays the villain.

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