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Ubisoft Unveils Neo NPCs at Game Developers Conference
Ubisoft has introduced Neo NPCs, a groundbreaking player-facing generative AI technology, during the Game Developers Conference. These Neo NPCs stand out due to their unique personalities and memories that shape conversations and gameplay interactions. With advanced neural functions, these characters can engage in unscripted dialogue, exhibit contextual awareness, and display real-time emotions and animations, transforming conversations into a significant gameplay element that involves information gathering and collaborative decision-making.
A dedicated team at Ubisoft’s Paris Studio spearheaded this research and development effort with crucial support from the production technology department. Unlike conventional NPCs, every aspect of the interactive Neo NPCs required meticulous programming, including personalities, backstories, agendas, and emotions. Consequently, each conversation with these characters is distinct, responding dynamically to players’ voice inputs and past interactions while maintaining coherence in the narrative structure.
Neo NPCs and Emergent Gameplay
At a private event hosted at GDC, Ubisoft demonstrated the capabilities of Neo NPCs through a three-part interactive showcase that highlighted the role of player inputs in driving emergent gameplay experiences through conversations. The initial segment allowed players to introduce themselves to a Neo NPC, triggering emotional adaptations and real-time reactions based on player intentions, unlocking new story elements and lore as relationships with these intelligent NPCs develop.
The second part showcased the context awareness of Neo NPCs, illustrating their ability to respond dynamically with unscripted reactions to in-game events, enriching the immersive environment. Quest providers, training partners, and companions can now adapt to players’ actions, creating more diverse and interactive worlds for players to explore, shaping the gameplay experience in real time. Finally, players had the opportunity to collaborate with Neo NPCs in planning a heist, encouraging innovative approaches and deepening engagement through dialogue and strategic decision-making.
Ubisoft’s Collaboration with Inworld AI and Nvidia
While Ubisoft led the Neo NPCs project, it partnered with Inworld AI and Nvidia to enhance these characters’ capabilities. Leveraging Inworld AI’s character engine and LLM technology, Ubisoft’s narrative team created comprehensive backgrounds, knowledge bases, and conversation styles for Neo NPCs, ensuring rich and engaging interactions. Nvidia’s Audio2Face technology contributed to the characters’ real-time facial animations, enhancing the immersive experience for players.
According to John Spitzer, VP of developer and performance technologies at Nvidia, AI-driven advancements such as Neo NPCs have the potential to revolutionize gaming by offering dynamic, immersive, and unique experiences. The collaborative efforts between Ubisoft, Inworld AI, and Nvidia aim to elevate narrative-driven gameplay in Ubisoft’s iconic franchises like Assassin’s Creed, The Division, and Far Cry, promising new dimensions of conversation-driven storytelling and exploration. While the project continues to evolve, the team remains focused on optimizing this transformative technology for future gaming experiences.
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