Replica Studios has released AI-powered smart NPCs for Unreal Engine 5, allowing players to have dynamic conversations with NPCs that respond in real-time. This revolutionary technology is part of the Replica Studio plugin, utilizing AI language models and more than 120 ethically licensed AI voices. As showcased in a demo featuring footage from Epic Games’ The Matrix Awakens and Digital Humans, these Smart NPCs will use OpenAI or the user’s own AI language model to not only respond to prompts, but to also change their dialogue and body language dynamically in reaction to user input, enabled with the recent Style Morphing update.
Replica believes this heralds a new era of virtual experiences driven by AI-powered conversations, allowing developers to create deeply engaging and narrative-heavy games with hundreds of characters, ever-expanding quests, and a world that changes in response to the player. Protocols such as the low latency cloud based solution and integration with Unreal Engine put the technology within reach of any game designer.
Replica Studios was founded by Shreyas Nivas in 2018 and has raised about $4.6 million to date. The company’s goal is to use AI technology to create indistinguishable voices of real voice actors, while also providing tools and services that make it easier for game designers to incorporate the technology into their projects.
Shreyas Nivas, CEO of Replica Studios, stated that he was heavily inspired by games and storytelling and believes that AI-powered Smart NPCs can enable more creators to make games with voice acting and allow bigger games companies to make much bigger projects with dynamic elements and storytelling. In an email to GamesBeat, Nivas posed the possibility that AI-powered Smart NPCs could create games with hundreds of live concurrent players and NPCs in the near future with little to no latency.
