Industry reactions to the potential usage of AI tools in game development have become commonplace. Some are staunchly opposed to it, while others are much more open to the idea or are even already implementing it in some capacity (despite the risk of backlash like the one Divinity developer Larian experienced just a few months ago).
In the latest episode of The MinnMaxx Show, Valve writer Erik Wolpaw, credited for games like Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, Portal 2, Artifact, and Half-Life: Alyx, revealed that he has been experimenting alongside a few Valve colleagues on AI and found at least one interesting use case for gaming development.
When I say 'we,' I don't mean Valve. I mean, a small group of people at Valve. You're always getting to poke around at new stuff. And so we've been looking at some AI stuff. In fact, this may be the first time they're hearing about it.
The thing that game writing specifically always had to simulate is characters in the game reacting to whatever you do in real time. We make these matrices; Left 4 Dead is a good example: if this happens and this happens, we'll play this line. That's the one place where I feel like AI is worth investigating.
Imagine Grand Theft Auto where you're going around creating a lot of physical chaos. There's a certain amount of social chaos where you have the AI play the straight man as much as it can, just reacting to whatever insanity. It's very good at just going along with whatever insane thing you say and adjusting to the flow of that. There's something there. I'm not saying I want it only in that case. I'm just saying what we found is that it is the case where it is most successful.
What seems to work best, and this is not my full-time job, is where it's kind of human-directed. The stuff that works best is where I've written a scenario, I've written a bunch of lines, it's a real collaboration between me, the writer, and the AI. That's when it works best, and not when the AI is just left to its own devices. We've actually had some stuff that I consider really interesting and really entertaining little scenarios.
The Valve writer also clarifies that he does not condone its use for cost-cutting measures, such as reducing human personnel. He also doesn't believe it can help with writing or voicing characters. However, he is interested in leveraging the technology to enable new types of gameplay that could not have been achieved before.
Having non-player characters (NPCs) that dynamically react to what the player is doing or even saying would definitely fall under that category. For decades, we've been limited to scripted responses, but generative AI can potentially unlock far more realistic and immersive exchanges with a game world's virtual inhabitants.
Inworld has been a pioneer in this sector, even demonstrating that its tech can work on-device. Triple-A games still have to introduce similar technology, with the exception of the rather clumsy implementation in Where Winds Meet, but it's likely only a matter of time.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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