Steven Spielberg's love of video games is well-documented. There are numerous pictures of him posing next to classic arcade games like Donkey Kong, Missile Command, and Space Invaders, and he's been involved in various video game-related projects over the years, including directing the film adaptation of Ready Player One.
But while many adults lose their passion for gaming as the grow older, Spielberg is apparently still at it. There's just one thing: he doesn't like controllers.
"He loves story games and I'm always trying to get him to play Uncharted because it's Indiana Jones and I'm like, 'Hey, you'd appreciate this.' But he's like, 'I can't do controllers. I can only do keyboard and mouse,'" said his son Max Spielberg, himself a game developer, in an interview with MinnMax.
His aversion is apparently strong enough that when Spielberg's son showed off his game, a co-op roguelite published by Dreamhaven, he had to be the one demo it because his father wouldn't pick up the controller. Hey, at least Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves has mouse and keyboard support on Steam, right?
It's always a Call of Duty. He loves Call of Duty. He plays the story campaign
In any event, Max says that gaming is a big point of bonding between the two. "He loves gaming. He's the one who got me into it. He plays games. He's a big PC gamer. So that's kind of our bonding point as well. He's like, 'Hey, what's good? What Call of Duty should I be playing? Send me a list of the top five shooters and I'll get them downloaded, then we can play them together when you come over to the house."
He adds, "It's always a Call of Duty. He loves Call of Duty. He plays the story campaign."
Elsewhere in the interview, Max shares some more stories about Steven Spielberg's connections with the games industry, including the time he received a Wii Sports demo from Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. Steven Spielberg, for his part, is hard at work on his next movie, which is said to be about UFOs and is due to release in 2026.
Photo by Marc Piasecki/WireImage
Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.