Can AI Make Video Games More Immersive? Some Studios Turn to AI-Fueled NPCs for More Interaction

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. (Reuters)
The AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. (Reuters)
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Can AI Make Video Games More Immersive? Some Studios Turn to AI-Fueled NPCs for More Interaction

The AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. (Reuters)
The AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. (Reuters)

For decades, video games have relied on scripted, stilted interactions with non-player characters to help shepherd gamers in their journeys. But as artificial intelligence technology improves, game studios are experimenting with generative AI to help build environments, assist game writers in crafting NPC dialogue and lend video games the improvisational spontaneity once reserved for table-top role-playing games.

In the multiplayer game “Retail Mage,” players help run a magical furniture store and assist customers in hopes of earning a five-star review. As a salesperson — and wizard — they can pick up and examine items or tell the system what they'd like to do with a product, such as deconstruct chairs for parts or tear a page from a book to write a note to a shopper.

A player’s interactions with the shop and NPCs around them — from gameplay mechanics to content and dialogue creation — are fueled by AI rather than a predetermined script to create more options for chatting and using objects in the shop.

“We believe generative AI can unlock a new kind of gameplay where the world is more responsive and more able to meet players at their creativity and the things that they come up with and the stories they want to tell inside a fantasy setting that we create for them,” said Michael Yichao, cofounder of Jam & Tea Studios, which created “Retail Mage.”

The typical NPC experience often leaves something to be desired. Pre-scripted interactions with someone meant to pass along a quest typically come with a handful of chatting options that lead to the same conclusion: players get the information they need and continue on. Game developers and AI companies say that by using generative AI tech, they aim to create a richer experience that allows for more nuanced relationships with the people and worlds that designers build.

Generative AI could also provide more opportunities for players to go off-script and create their own stories if designers can craft environments that feel more alive and can react to players' choices in real-time.

Tech companies continue to develop AI for games, even as developers debate how, and whether, they’ll use AI in their products. Nvidia created its ACE technologies to bring so-called “digital humans” to life with generative AI. Inworld AI provides developers with a platform for generative NPC behavior and dialogue. Gaming company Ubisoft said last year that it uses Ghostwriter, an in-house AI tool, to help write some NPC dialogue without replacing the video game writer.

A report released by the Game Developers Conference in January found that nearly half of developers surveyed said generative AI tools are currently being used in their workplace, with 31% saying they personally use those tools. Developers at indie studios were most likely to use generative AI, with 37% reporting using the tech.

Still, roughly four out of five developers said they worry about the ethical use of AI. Carl Kwoh, Jam & Tea's CEO, said AI should be used responsibly alongside creators to elevate stories — not to replace them.

“That’s always been the goal: How can we use this tool to create an experience that makes players more connected to each other?” said Kwoh, who is also one of the company’s founders. “They can tell stories that they couldn’t tell before.”

Using AI to provide NPCs with endless things to say is “definitely a perk,” Yichao said, but "content without meaning is just endless noise." That's why Jam & Tea uses AI — through Google's Gemma 2 and their own servers in Amazon — to give NPCs the ability to do more than respond, he said. They can look for objects as they’re shopping or respond to other NPCs to add “more life and reactivity than a typically scripted encounter.”

“I’ve watched players turn our shopping experience into a bit of a dating sim as they flirt with customers and then NPCs come up with very realistic responses,” he said. “It’s been really fun to see the game react dynamically to what players bring to the table.”

Demonstrating a conversation with an NPC in the game “Mecha BREAK,” in which players battle war machines, Ike Nnole said that Nvidia has made its AI “humans” respond faster than they previously could by using small language models. Using Nvidia's AI, players can interact with the mechanic, Martel, by asking her to do things like customize the color of a mech machine.

“Typically, a gamer would go through menus to do all this,” Nnole, a senior product marketing manager at Nvidia said. “Now it could be a much more interactive, much quicker experience.”

Artificial Agency, a Canadian AI company, built an engine that allows developers to bring AI into any part of their game — not only NPCs, but also companions and “overseer agents” that can steer a player towards content they’re missing. The AI can also create tutorials to teach players a skill that they are missing so they can have more fun in-game, the company said.

“One way we like to put it is putting a game designer on the shoulder of everyone as they’re playing the game,” said Alex Kearney, cofounder of Artificial Agency. The company’s AI engine can be integrated at any stage of the game development cycle, she said.

Brian Tanner, Artificial Agency's CEO, said scripting every possible outcome of a game can be tedious and difficult to test. Their system allows designers to act more like directors, he said, by telling characters more about their motivation and background.

"These characters can improvise on the spot depending on what’s actually happening in the game,” Tanner said.

It's easy to run into a game's guardrails, Tanner said, where NPCs keep repeating the same phrase regardless of how players interact with them. But as AI continues to evolve, that will change, he added.

“It is truly going to feel like the world’s alive and like everything really reacts to exactly what’s happening," he said. “That’s going to add tremendous realism.”



'Call of Duty' to Fire Starting Gun at Gamescom Trade Show

Fans often arrive at Gamescom wearing more or less elaborate costumes. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
Fans often arrive at Gamescom wearing more or less elaborate costumes. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
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'Call of Duty' to Fire Starting Gun at Gamescom Trade Show

Fans often arrive at Gamescom wearing more or less elaborate costumes. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File
Fans often arrive at Gamescom wearing more or less elaborate costumes. Ina FASSBENDER / AFP/File

Mega-selling first-person shooter franchise "Call of Duty" will blow open the Gamescom video games trade fair Tuesday, headlining a wave of new releases as the industry weathers a rough patch.

Around 5,000 people, including game publishers, developers and fans, will attend the evening launch ceremony, before hundreds of thousands of gamers descend on the western German city of Cologne later in the week, said AFP.

Canadian TV presenter Geoff Keighley will from 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) introduce titles including "Call of Duty: Black Ops 7", one of two dozen instalments in the long-running series, as part of a two-hour showreel of the industry's upcoming blockbuster productions.

After a business and press day on Wednesday, Gamescom's doors will be flung open until Sunday to bring around 1,500 exhibitors together with swarms of fans, some of them dressed in elaborate costumes painstakingly drawn from the screens of their favorite titles.

While last year's event drew 335,000 visitors, organizers hope 2025 can bring it back to pre-Covid levels of around 370,000.

"We'll only know on the final day how many actually visited, but... the first day is sold out, all indicators are in the green," Felix Falk, managing director of Germany's GAME industry association that co-organizes Gamescom, told AFP ahead of opening day.

Hands-on time

One of the major draws to the vast halls of the Koelnmesse convention center is the opportunity for hands-on time with the feast of the latest releases at the vast stands laid on by major firms.

Nintendo is back after staying away last year, surfing on the success of its record-breaking Switch 2 console launch earlier this year.

And Microsoft's Xbox division will be showing off its own portable console, slated for release towards the end of the year.

But Japanese PlayStation maker Sony has elected to stay away in 2025.

Among the hotly anticipated games unveiled this edition are new episodes of horror sagas "Silent Hill" and "Resident Evil".

Indie hit "Hollow Knight" will get a sequel with "Silksong" after an eight-year wait, while Nintendo is cooking up "Metroid Prime 4", following up the beloved science-fiction action series.

Exhibitors may be less ecstatic than fans at this year's Gamescom as the industry endures an extended rough patch.

"The sector hasn't had an easy time of it in the last two years, there was a lot of consolidation, job cuts, some studios closed, some projects were ended prematurely," Falk said.

"That's not unusual for the highly dynamic games industry but it's nevertheless not pretty when it happens," he added.

Tracking website Game Industry Layoffs has tallied almost 30,000 job cuts since early 2023, with more than 4,000 this year alone.

But revenue in the global games market should hold steady at just under $190 billion this year, data firm Newzoo has forecast.