Ubisoft has never been one to shy away from new and upcoming technology, and as you'd expect, it's been experimenting with implementation of generative AI in video games. The publisher unveiled its NEO NPC project at GDC, an early prototype that aims to explore how AI tech can make in-game characters and experiences more immersive.
Stressing that the experiment is purely a prototype and that there's "still a way to go before it can be implemented in a game", Ubisoft's Paris team is leading the charge, using Nvidia's Audio2Face application along with Inworld's Large Language Model to test the limits of player interactions with NPCs. Early demonstrations of how this currently works comprise multiple interactive scenarios that have the player conversing with in-game characters using speech-to-text. They'll respond to what you said, rather than having a limited number of lines to recite.
Ubisoft's NEO NPCs are apparently a step beyond just chatbots, though. Their personalities and backgrounds are authored by human writers, and within these prototypes, operate within the bounds of their scenarios. One example is a heist situation, in which the player must decide how to break into an enemy base. An NPC named Iron asks what you think is the best approach, and responds accordingly. However, there are only so many ways to approach the heist, meaning you ultimately need to pick from a limited set of options. Iron will protest to your alternative suggestions, as highlighted in Eurogamer's write-up. While this sounds limited, the idea seems to be that NEO NPCs work within the direction of a game's design, complementing scenarios with more immersive conversations rather than simply spewing generated answers with no regard for context.
The team behind this prototype says these NEO NPCs aren't going to deliver robotic answers, but will instead act like the characters they represent. In other words, not only will they provide more life-like responses to players, but they'll do it in unique ways, depending on who they're meant to be. As noted in Ubisoft's press release, they'll play a role in a story and go through narrative arcs.
It seems far away from being properly worked into a game, and there are definitely still limitations, but it's a very interesting project nonetheless. You can read more about all this on Ubisoft's website, and some sites such as Eurogamer have impressions of the prototype too.
What do you think of Ubisoft's NEO NPC project? Discuss in the comments section below.
[source news.ubisoft.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 37
Official Website wrote:
Can't say I have
Ubisoft really is cutting edge when it comes to developing methods of making their games duller and more generic.
"We are about to fire a lot of people."
I mean, if done right, this could be a huge shot in the arm for RPGs, and most especially for VR games I'd have thought.
Entering dialogue with an NPC in the next Baldur's Gate and then being able to speak directly to the character as if I actually were Tav, about pretty much anything, and have the NPC respond to what I actually chose to say, would be very, very cool.
I dunno, I think something will get lost along the way if games are going down this route. It's as though you will never be able to find all of a game's secrets or experience branching choices on multiple play throughs etc etc etc.
Also the subconscious relationship between 'Author' and player that we all have will be completely lost too.
They could even unlock secret hidden strategies and gameplay options depending on what you ask. Although it sounds like the conversation around games will be quite different if everyone has a unique experience...its nice for the community to be able to share and relate to a single experience in a way which is the same for everyone.
Imagine not being able to befriend NPCs in a video game because you bore all of them to death.
Ubisoft NPCs will have more meaning than their games
I can't wait for them to develop an AI to replace their CEO and investors. Maybe that AI will be more humane and re-hire humans to make proper games "by humans, for humans".
@StrickenBiged Sure but would you get encounters like that noir cat? Or any of the hundred humorous mini stories you get from NPCs? Even if you write the framework and let the NPC improvise, I don’t think it would be as good as something written with intent. I think something will get lost in this, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Me: "We need to deal with the guard in the library"
NPC: "Sure but all in good time, why don't we traverse this giant map doing a hundred hours of unnecessary fetch quests first? And we can talk about whatever you'd like while doing it"
How is this different from the matrix UE5 demo with AI speech prompt that's been shown 6 months ago by many youtubers?
The real time interactions with NPCs that all have their own mind and thinking and able to answer you in real time with almost no delay. They also remember the conversation so they don't duplicate themselves or forget what the talk is about.
If they can get this balanced it would be helpful to certain genres of video games. I can definitely see this being a boon to games that incorporate detective work and mystery. Imagine a Deus Ex where you get to really feel like you are investigating the conspiracy behind the plot. Or a Sherlock Holmes game. Hell, even survivor-horror games could use this well.
Like I said, this would have to be optimized and balanced to the extremes. Definitely not going to happen soon.
It’s definitely got that gee-whiz factor, but when I think about implementation, I have to scratch my head. It seems to me that most in game conversations with NPCs that move the story along are limited by context, so until I’m shown otherwise, I’ll go for the dialogue crafted by human writers. Conversing with random NPCs in a realistic manner could be fun, but it’s ultimately seasoning that adds flavor to the overall game world, and too much seasoning can ruin a meal.
"I'm sorry, Shiv. I understand that you would like to know how to reach the tower beyond the lake. However the tower beyond the lake can not be accessed at this time. The tower beyond the lake is approximately twenty-four meters in height and is located beyond the lake which is inaccessible at this time. To access the tower beyond the lake you must use the underwater access passage on the south side of the lake which you will find on your map. You will then be able to access the tower beyond the lake."
What if the AI decides it does not like me and just do not talk to me. will I be stuck in this level
Those of you who still sing the praises of VR should be fawning over this. It is the crucial step towards fully immersive and interactive worlds.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but after seeing what generative AI can be capable of in terms of carrying on (ostensibly) intelligent, interesting conversations in naturalistic language, I'd love to see its use expanded to interactions with video game NPCs in a fleshed out dialogue system.
Mmmmm hello future VR AI girlfriend
"Ubisoft has never been one to shy away from new and upcoming technology"
in their neverending quest for corner-cutting, penny-pinching greed.
@ShadowofSparta Who's to say that the NPC couldn't have some lines that were written with intent? All you'd need to do is tag some part of the dialogue as essential to get across to the player, and then tell the LLM to improvise a sentence or two that get you from responding to whatever the player said (perhaps, say, when the player brings up a topic, such as a quest item or location) to the fully-scripted sentence in a smooth way.
I think this has the potential to be great, personally. You'll still need decently sized writing teams to do this well, as someone will need to be responsible for defining what the NPC knows and thinks about the world, other characters, the central plot of the game, etc, and make sure that this is consistent with your lore. Devs may even need to spend more time on writing than they do now. Currently, if I go speak to a minor NPC like a shopkeeper, I might only have two or three options of lore or quest related dialogue before they only thing left to talk to them about is trading. With something like an LLM built into the dialogue and no set dialogue trees, devs will have to flesh out every NPC's back-story much more to account for the player asking them about potentially anything.
Sounds great plus they can trim their writer's & actors and get development costs back under control
TTRPGs have been using this technology for 50 years in real life
It is interesting though, and I think in 10 years time this is going to be standard. Along with procedural level design etc it’s only a matter of time before game makers design the framework and basic plot for a game and the rest of it is just AI.
"Go and kill that final boss for me."
"No sir, why should I do that?"
"Because I'm hero on level 1 with sword in hand that can cut your throat in a blink of an eye. Now stop talking and go kill that final boss!!!"
let's see how soon whole game population extinct or run away...
Depending on which side of society you come from it's hard to tell if we are heading toward a utopia or a dystopia.
The ultra-rich already live in a Utopia from their perspective. All their needs are met and they can pursue their interests with little to no resistance. The only real problem they have is what to do with all of the rest of us poors. Solution: VR, AI, and sugary snacks so they can harvest all of our dopamine and serotonin to sell to the other galactic races. Bezos got the aliens hooked on our pleasure chemicals about a decade ago to keep them from taking over Amazon. Now they need a constant supply or they will take over the earth and create equality for all and get their serotonin and dopamine through exposure to billions of happy people with all their needs met. And everyone knows the rich don't want that.
or um, cool tech, could make games funner.
I'm confused, what is new? I had the impression that all Ubisoft games were generated by AI since the past 15 years?
@FinneasGH
...and the "game" world will change based on how users interact with the AI algorithms. Are you Ready Player One? Or is it red or blue pill time? Soylent green is made of people!!!
At least one thing is for sure. The meme potential of AI conversation driven games will be unending. IDK if Ubisoft's AAAAAA AI dialogue driven pirate game will sell well, but I do know Youtubers will print money getting that tavern wench to say things the ESRB/PEGI definitely did not consider.
@MikeOrator I can't tell if that post is you being sarcastic, if if your post is written by AI being serious.
@Bamila That was essentially just a bit of programming that took text, run it through ChatGPT and then show it response to the player.
Those characters could say anything through, even things unrelated to the game or to the character themselves. a accountant could talk about massages or how it was like being a premier league footballer.
Building a system that allows you talk to a character but it response is inline with that character views and inline with the world that character live, you don't want medieval peasants talking about PS5s or aliens in the distant future discussing how terrible of a soap opera Eastenders is.
What we actually want is to be able to tell a drug dealer that drugs are great, an elicit a response of the drug dealer agreeing with you.
Tell a doctor that drugs are great and you will get a response of the doctor disagreeing with you, may be even a story of how drug have has harmed of their patients. Tell the police that you have drugs on you, you want them to arrest you or least die trying.
Where the matrix demo will likely get ChatGPT to produce the same answer for all characters, drugs are bad, here a number to help you give up drugs.
@NEStalgia
LOL...if you are referring to the alien story it was kind of a stream-of-consciousness thing on 2 cups of coffee. However, it seems like we are getting closer and closer to living inside a computer and interacting with people who are not people. It'll be just another thing to placate the masses and keep us under control.
@StrickenBiged The writers may even have to be more than just writers, they may have to expand their skill set to be AI trainers as well and may be world builders to ensure no matter what us idiot gamers say, we all end up basically with the same ending or one of a number of endings and they can get their story told.
With the amount of people who work for Ubisoft just wait until they unleash their lay off numbers.
@MikeOrator We've been interacting with people who are not people for centuries. They're called "management" and "customer service"
Yeah, I find it frightening that we're already at the point that we don't actually know if we're interacting with people or not for sure. And more troubling, is we're close to the point that it's considered the same thing either way. Instead of a cautionary tale it's like the people that run the world read Asimov, Heinlein, and Orwell as a how-to guide.
Sometimes I kind of wish we could uninvent science. I was one of those science club nerds in high school. I'm kind of now going full luddite, anti-science, Thoreauist. Give me a field, metal tools, and something to make fire with, and that's life. All the modern wonders of the world and the best thing we can do with it to find happiness is strap ourselves into a VR helmet and pretend we live in a field with metal tools and something to make fire with rather than one that makes OLED panels. Humans have done some good things with science, but the obsession with reducing all of life to measurable numbers, single universal truths, that can be replicated, distorted, packaged, withheld, and sold kind of undoes all the good it could do. For all the wonders of the modern age, humans don't seem to be any happier than they were 800 years ago. All we've done is build ourselves a more secure jail and more tools to try to forget what we built.
I’m thinking we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Now gamers have to pay for unique conversation with NPCs too coz it's Ubisoft
@Quintumply This actually sounds ALOT like the Cardinal System from the Sword Art Online universe lol.
Doesnt Ubisoft use AI already you could have fooled me with their bland games.
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