How Ubisoft, Xbox and Blizzard are using AI to make next-gen games.

Some of the most successful video game studios are using generative AI to create new levels of detail for in-game aspects of tedious game design, such as NPC dialogue – all to speed up development and focus human talent on more important tasks. Elements.

Generative AI is artificial intelligence that can create new content—using questions like text, images, or music. It learns from large amounts of data and uses that data to produce new, incremental content, from simple sentences to videos and complex artworks.

Although the technology has only recently caught the imagination (and concern) of the mainstream, here's how some game developers are using AI.

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Blizzard entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, the studio behind Diablo, Overwatch and World of Warcraft, revealed in an internal memo in May that the company had begun experimenting with AI to create in-game characters.

According to a report by the New York Times, Blizzard is deploying its own internal AI tool to allow employees to access sensitive company information and IP addresses. Although Blizzard executives are excited about the possibility of using AI in the next generation of games, some employees have said that the company's AI has done a poor job of catching bugs and issues in the games they've tested.

Square Enix

In April, Square Enix's AI division published an AI-generated update demo of the 1983 text adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case, highlighting how large language models can be applied to text-based games.

The company behind Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts has been looking at AI for some time. In May 2022, Square Enix announced that it would sell several of its franchises and the Tomb Raider franchise (among others) to Sweden-based Embracer Group AB, and use the proceeds to invest in artificial intelligence and Web3 games.

Square Enix has backed AI startup Atlas, which uses generative AI to transform text and images into 3D worlds.

Roblox

Online gaming platform Roblox announced the launch of two new generative AI tools in February to streamline game creation: Code Assist and Material Generator.

Currently in beta, the tools automate basic coding tasks by generating helpful code snippets and creating object textures from queries. Using generative AI will make the creative process easier and faster, Roblox said, adding that there are plans to enable third-party AI services as well as lure AI developers and creators to the Roblox platform.

Roblox founder and CEO David Bazuki said in August that he believes AI tools will help players make “richer and more dynamic” games.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft, creator of the Assassin's Creed franchise, announced the launch of Ghostwriter in March. This AI tool allows game developers to generate the first draft of non-player character (NPC) dialogue, colloquially known as “barks”, allowing writers to focus on story development.

Ubisoft says the ultimate goal is to enable designers to create AI systems tailored to their needs, using a back-end tool called Ernestine to create large language models like Ghostwriter.

Microsoft

With a $10 billion investment in OpenAI, much is being said about generative AI. Microsoft In the year In November, it said it was ramping up an AI design pilot that adds generative AI features to Xbox game developers.

“Our goal is to deliver state-of-the-art AI tools to game developers of all sizes,” wrote Haiyan Zhang, Xbox's General Manager of Gaming AI.

Microsoft says the new AI tools—thanks to Inworld AI, one of the portfolio companies in the tech behemoth's venture arm—will empower game developers and allow Davis to turn questions into game elements, including scripts, dialogue trees and quests. However, the move has received a lot of pushback from game developers and developers, who say the move threatens their careers.

NCSoft

In March, NCSoft—creator of the Aion, Guild Wars, and Race series of games—unveiled its digital human technology with a trailer for its upcoming game Project M. Speech synthesis technology can translate text into human speech and reproduce an actor's speech, accent, and emotion.

Not content to stop at AI-generated voices, NCSoft used “voice-to-face” technology to add facial expressions and synchronize dialogue.

Nivea

Tech giant Nvidia released a demo of the NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for games in May. The demo shows an AI-generated ramen shop and a non-player character (NPC) talking to the player behind the bar.

Using AI, NPC can understand the meaning through better interaction, explained Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. In partnership with Melbourne-based Convai, ACE includes a number of Nvidia services, including NeMo, Riva and Omniverse Audio2Face.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa and Andrew Hayward.

Editor's note: This article was first published on July 5, 2023 and was most recently updated with new content on November 19.