Ubisoft Reveals Generative AI ‘NEO NPCs’ at GDC 2024

It didn’t take long for AI to become the focus of GDC 2024. Today, Ubisoft took to the stage at the San Francisco event to highlight what it called ‘NEO NPCs,’ showing what the future of gaming could look like. The prototype is being developed in partnership with Inworld AI.

In a statement, Ubisoft called the project its “first player-facing generative AI prototype that could transform the way players interact with non-playable characters (NPCs) in video games and open new frontiers for gameplay that natively integrates generative AI features.”

Select members of the press were invited to partake in a demo with AI-generated characters using voice commands. First, they were tasked with building a relationship with an NPC named Bloom by asking questions to trigger scripted information relevant to the game. Next, Bloom watched players engage in a stealth mission, reacting in real-time to in-game events and providing helpful information.

In the final demo, an NPC named Iron suggested different ways to infiltrate a building. Players were asked to challenge her logic and come up with their own ideas, which Iron would comment on.

“Inworld AI’s Character Engine and LLM technology enable Ubisoft’s narrative team to build a complete background, knowledge base and conversational style for each NPC, while Nvidia Audio2Face, part of NVIDIA ACE suite of technologies, is used to enable real-time facial animation,” Ubisoft reported.

The director and producer of the project, Xavier Manzanares, also gave a statement. “It could be the start of a fantastic paradigm shift,“It could be the start of a fantastic paradigm shift. For the first time, the game world actually listens to and dynamically responds to the players.”