Ubisoft's new 'Ghostwriter' AI tool generates dialogue for NPCs in games

(Image Courtesy: Ubisoft)

Ubisoft, the French publishing house behind game franchises like Far Cry, Prince of Persia and Assassins Creed, has developed an AI tool that can generate conversations for non-playable characters (NPC).

NPCs are characters that the player is not directly in control of, and Ubisoft says the AI tool will not replace writers but rather help them quickly churn out "barks", which are trigger interactions based on player inputs.

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Ubisoft says this will allow writers to flush out the main narrative, and keep dialogue unique for each NPC in the game world.

“Crowd chatter and barks are central features of player immersion in games," Ubisoft said in a blog post. "NPCs speaking to each other, enemy dialogue during combat, or an exchange triggered when entering an area all provide a more realistic world experience and make the player feel like the game around them exists outside of their actions.”

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Ghostwriter can generate first drafts of these interactions. As a writer, you would choose a character and type of interaction based on that character. The AI will then generate two options to choose from.

Once an option is selected, the AI learns from that process. The idea is that it will get better as it learns preferences for interactions from the writers.