Finally AI in Video Games?

Elon’s Announcement

The day before yesterday in the news: Elon Musk looking for Video Game Developers

Okay, I’m really not a fan of Elon, who helped with millions to hoist a sick sociopath back into the most influential office in the world in the US. But that’s quite an exciting piece of news: xAI is supposed to develop games in the future.

I find the idea of integrating LLMs into games extremely exciting. And I’m wondering how it can be 2025, three years after ChatGPT 3.5, and AI-controlled NPCs still haven’t celebrated a breakthrough in the gaming market. Maybe Elon will change that.

My Experiments

My experiments on the topic were exciting. Unfortunately, I lack any talent for creating beautiful graphics, and painting tiles with AI help… well… But the game mechanics were fun. The basic principle is that the player, in a small level, lives with some weapons, armor, treasures, and several NPCs, all of which have a character based on the “Big Five personality traits” and a job, such as guard, peacekeeper, pirate, warrior, wild beast. Both the player and NPCs can pick things up, move around, talk to each other, give things to another, attack someone else. And the NPCs were controlled by LLMs.

Game in Action

Sometimes interesting dialogues emerged:

I was able to convince a peacekeeper to give me his weapon so I could defend myself against an aggressive animal.
I was able to intimidate a traveling merchant into giving me his treasures.
In a longer dialogue, a peacekeeper decided to accompany me through the dungeon.

My game is of course rubbish; I don’t have an AI development team building me a specialized gaming LLM that’s small, fast, and still reliable. I had to rely on standard LLMs, and except for Mistral, each turn took 10 seconds.

Nevertheless, my conclusion is that the often dull interactions in normal RPGs like Skyrim—where contact with NPCs is either scripted dialogue or combat—run completely differently in such a game with real AIs: much more exciting, unexpected, creative.

Since my experiment, I’ve been waiting for a game that really does this well. So far without success. Maybe Elon will make it happen.