Xbox Partners with Gaming AI Startup to Make NPCs more Dynamic with AI

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By Aaron Klotz
Contributions from
Sarah Jacobsson Purewal
 published

Time to get rid of those repetitive NPC one-liners

Inworld Xbox Partnership
(Image credit: Inworld)

Xbox has partnered with gaming AI startup Inworld to build more lifelike NPCs using generative AI. The partnership will involve the creation of a new toolkit to help game developers create more diverse and expansive AI personalities for in-game NPCs. 

According to a blog post by Inworld, the company plans to build two tools with Xbox: an AI design co-pilot that will build detailed scripts, dialogue trees, and quests for game developers, and a new AI character runtime engine that can be integrated directly into the game client (allowing NPCs to have dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue). 

The goal is to make future NPCs more lifelike — with highly dynamic, in-depth personalities that will adapt to players' game choices in real time, providing players "with a sense of agency and engagement." Inworld believes AI is the next step toward a more immersive gaming experience. 

The company recently published a study that said 99% of gamers think that advanced AI NPCs will improve gameplay — as 84% of gamers feel that NPCs make a "substantial difference" to gameplay. According to the study, which surveyed 1,002 U.S.-based gamers and was funded by Inworld, 81% of gamers would be willing to pay more for improved, advanced AI NPCs. 

The Xbox-Inworld partnership will allow Inworld access to both Microsoft's expertise in generative AI — including its cloud-based AI solutions, such as Azure OpenAI and Bing Chat — as well as its gaming development experience on the Xbox side. This should speed up Inworld's development process, enabling it to create more polished generative AI tools that game devs will be able to use in the future for both general development and these new advanced AI NPCs.

If Inworld's ambitions come to fruition with this new partnership, this might be the end of NPCs as we know them — in the future, we may have complex, unpredictable NPCs with the aid of generative AI. (But also, maybe there's something to be said for a well-written, planned-out script — the NPCs in Baldur's Gate 3 certainly feel adaptive and lifelike, after all.)

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

With contributions from
7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vanadiel007
    " 81% of gamers would be willing to pay more for improved, advanced AI NPCs. '

    And this is why we have to pay these high prices for games, the 81% who would pay money for improved NPC's.
    Soon games will come in black and white, and color will be extra.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    Hey wait, this is NOT what I meant when I said I wanted better AI in games! I meant that I want AI at least on par with what was in F.E.A.R. and Halo CE. AI that tries to utilize tactics and outmaneuver you instead of staying where it was spawned or creating giant clipping stacks of mobs. Adding more lines of filler dialogue or more side quests to random NPCs in town is not fun -- it's tedious.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    published a study that said 99% of gamers think that advanced AI NPCs will improve gameplay — as 84% of gamers feel that NPCs make a "substantial difference" to gameplay. According to the study, which surveyed 1,002 U.S.-based gamers and was funded by Inworld, 81% of gamers would be willing to pay more for improved, advanced AI NPCs.


    so they asked 99% of all gamers across globe?
    these "studies" that use this language is just stupid as its faulty by design. If I ask 1000 ppl something theres a good chance I can get 1000 ppl who think alike...doesnt make it the actual global mentality of it...just that got lucky on who you asked.



    theres literally hundreds of millions of gamers.

    even out of 50M ppl 1,002 is 0.02%.

    the % gets smaller as the userbase goes up (and mroe than 50M gamers by far)


    idc about NPC's personally..would it be fun if they wereb etter? sure. Would I pay extra for it? no.

    Way too many games already launch is incomplete, broken, or beta state.
    Just having pay $70 for those is awful. Rather nto pay more for same mess with better npc's (which would liekly only be fun for a bit then just skip all the dialog)


    also these "ai npc" likely mean "requires online connection" which I hate as travelling, isp issue, etc can casue you tyo be w/o net meaning you cant play game and get what you paid for.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Still playing the demo of razor or fitgirl before any purchase anyway... these new games is better to see on YouTube than be played.
    Reply
  • vehekos
    Good AI should BEHAVE intelligently.
    Because smart AI can be manipulated and that's fun. Like setting traps and getting the satisfaction of having outsmarted a worthy enemy.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    hotaru251 said:
    so they asked 99% of all gamers across globe?
    these "studies" that use this language is just stupid as its faulty by design. If I ask 1000 ppl something theres a good chance I can get 1000 ppl who think alike...doesnt make it the actual global mentality of it...just that got lucky on who you asked.



    theres literally hundreds of millions of gamers.

    even out of 50M ppl 1,002 is 0.02%.

    the % gets smaller as the userbase goes up (and mroe than 50M gamers by far)
    As long as the samples are chosen properly, you can get a confidence interval of +- 3%, 19 times out of 20, with as little as 1000 samples, regardless of population size.

    I'd be skeptical of that survey simply because it was run by a company whose product is AI NPCs and they didn't make the methodology public (at least not without giving them your contact details in order to download the report). But the sample size isn't the issue.
    Reply
  • vanadiel007
    vehekos said:
    Good AI should BEHAVE intelligently.
    Because smart AI can be manipulated and that's fun. Like setting traps and getting the satisfaction of having outsmarted a worthy enemy.

    Well, I wonder if smart AI should cause NPC's to walk out when the game is mediocre and poorly developed. They should be able to.
    I pay money for that: an empty game world because all NPC's decided to walk out due to poor management decisions.
    Reply