The game should disappear without the LLM

Most “AI games” I see fall into three buckets:

Cheating software. Smarter NPCs for RPGs. An agent proving it can play Pokémon.

Cool projects, but the original game still works if you remove the model.

My test for AI-native is harsher: the game should not exist without LLMs.

Take the five agents out of Sitrep and you don’t have a smaller shooter. The entire game disappears. No squad interpreting your command. No trust problem. No gap between what you meant and what they actually did.

That gap is the game.

More from Johannes Cortez · The next generation of games · Sitrep field notes