Have you ever asked yourself what would it be like to have a conversation with an NPC (non-player character) in a video game? How about having a conversation that remembered the past talks you have taken and interacting with the character based on that? An ambitious modder, Art From The Machine, is working on just that – creating a mod for the popular game Skyrim VR that wires up NPCs with a machine language model, ChatGPT, to generate dynamic conversations.
With this mod, conversations with NPCs in Skyrim become less limited to a menu board and can provide players with a natural way of conversing with an AI system that remembers past conversations and provides texts to speech so the characters can be voiced. This can be seen in a video that features Ulfberth War-Bear, an employee at the store Warmaiden’s in Whiterun. An NPC like Ulfberth War-Bear can answer questions such as “When does the store close?” or “Can you describe this sword?” with dynamically generated responses that are tailored to in-game conversations as they happen.
Though responses and pronunciations may seem clunky and awkward at the moment, this mod stands as a tribute to the endless potential if NPCs can be intelligently wired with AI systems. In the future, virtual conversations may be taken to the next level if AI can harness the ability of NPCs to not only remember events and conversations but also to understand and react to players in the game.
Art From The Machine is not the only modder that is tackling this challenge. For example, there is a Mod for the game Mount & Blade: Bannerlord that uses AI to answer questions typed by the players. Without a doubt, these AI-enabled conversations are high potential prospects and have the ability to more effectively create a personalized in-game experience.
Meanwhile, we can observe the effect of modulation projects such as by Art From The Machine and look forward to more innovative and unique implementations of AI-driven technology in games. Such achievements can make the gaming world feel a lot more alive, creating dynamic interactions between characters and making the entire experience more engaging and immersive.
