Ubisoft Shows Off New AI-Powered FPS And Hopes You've Forgotten About Its Failed NFTs (kotaku.com) 25
Ubisoft has revealed Teammates, a first-person shooter built around AI-powered squadmates that the company is calling its "first playable generative AI research project" -- not long after the publisher went all-in on NFTs and the metaverse only to largely move on from both. Built in the Snowdrop Engine that powers The Division 2 and Star Wars Outlaws, the game features an AI assistant named Jaspar and two AI squadmates called Pablo and Sofia. Players can issue natural voice commands to direct the squadmates in combat or puzzle-solving, while Jaspar handles mission tracking and guidance. The project comes from the same team behind Ubisoft's Neo NPCs, demonstrated at GDC 2024.
They got us all used to horse armor (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, us old farts won't cave, but the kids will just grow up with AI Slop as normal. They won't know what they're missing.
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Uhg... (Score:1)
You can just say NPCs... why do they constantly shoehorn this buzz term in? Is it to gain more funding or something?
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I thought it was a nod to Daikatana, whose "AI-powered sidekicks" were legendarily bad. They're acknowledging that they too want a game to fail as badly as Daikatana. Every studio should have at least one Daikatana under its belt.
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But I can't see that really happening because machine learning algorithms requires so much processing power and modern graphics do the same so you just don't have a lot of head room.
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In fairness this has always been called game AI.
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One potentially valuable thing... (Score:3)
Directing NPCs using natural language could enhance single player experience, where games have long sought to have NPC "sidekicks" and at best had to settle for very basic inputs in a real-time scenario "focus on my target, pick your target, form up, spread out" and even then it is generally making the input "too busy". These NPCs are a common source of frustration today, and if the gaming industry can't seem to give up on them, this could at least make them less infuriating... maybe...
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Oh, for dialog it would suck. I'm thinking more about commanding 'sidekicks' to do certain things. Like voice command saying: "Bob, get up to that ledge (while pointing your crosshairs indicating the ledge) and provide cover with your sniper rifle". Today you can't direct non-human 'squad mates' with that level of specificity, so they do their specific scripted things or vaguely adjust their behavior in accordance to your vague command based on a press of a directional button. Natural language command o
AI NPCs (Score:3)
About time. Using AI to actually do AI for non-player characters is going to make for some very immersive single-player games. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm not sure if this is the best implementation, though... seems like they're failing to learn from Daikatana. But it's Ubisoft, so they'll burn their money as they damn well please.
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I actually see more games leaning toward highly scripted interactions rather than AI, so I don't think NPC logic has improved much at all.
Regardless, my point about Daikatana is that the AI "sidekicks" were heavily marketed... and then highly ridiculed when the game failed to deliver because it shipped half-baked. Ubisoft seems to be going down the same path. If they ship these AI NPC sidekicks, they better be either (a) really fucking good, or (b) easily bypassed.
Having good NPC AI usually means it stays o
NFTs (Score:2)
Whatever happened to all the gullible mugs who paid $$$ for the right to not actually own but [do something with] some questionable art work? Wonder if there'll ever see their money again... hmmm.....
Meanwhile, the shysters who flogged this meaningless digital crap are probably drinking cocktails by their pools while thinking up another way to fleece idiots. Oh look, here comes AI...
NLP has been around for a while. (Score:2)
I remember it from 2006...
I am reminded of Daikatana... (Score:2)
Two AI assistants? Not sure about other stuff, but this sort of reminds me of the insanely hyped game back in the late 1990s, Daikatana, where one had to ensure AI controlled NPCs made it. It didn't exactly help gameplay back then.
"guardrails" (Score:1)
The company said that it had guardrails in place to help stop the AI companions from hallucinating, being overly toxic, or going completely off script.
Yeah, and since it's Ubisoft, these AI-NPCs will probably get offended quickly upon misinterpreting whatever you said as something they consider politically incorrect. And if you dare to misgender your non-binary AI "companion", it will start shooting at you.
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Luckily I invested in ugly monkey nfts (Score:2)
I immediately knew that those Ubisoft NFTs could not be trusted.
I pity anyone who invested their lifesavings in these fake NFTS