Microsoft announced a partnership with Inworld AI to assist in creating game dialogue and narrative tools for its Xbox studios.
The partnership is detailed in a blog post by Xbox’s General Manager of Gaming AI, Haiyan Zhang. In the post, Zhang confirms that this technology is meant to work in random with Microsoft’s own cloud and AI tech to create both “An AI design copilot that assists and empowers game designers to explore more creative ideas, turning prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and more,” and “an AI character runtime engine that can be integrated into the game client, enabling entirely new narratives with dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue for players to experience.”
No specific Xbox-owned studios were named, nor were developers from them commenting as part of this announcement, so it’s unknown how much those developers are truly interested in embracing this kind of AI technology. In general, AI is a very controversial topic in creative spaces as artists and writers are worried that it will replace their jobs while creating worse art. AI leadership at Xbox doesn’t seem to think that will become an issue, with Zhang explaining that the main purpose of this partnership is to “make it easier for developers to realize their visions, try new things, push the boundaries of gaming today and experiment to improve gameplay, player connection and more.”
The blog post also teases that Microsoft will be willing to share these tools with interested third-party studios. Ultimately, it will likely take several years before we truly know what the impact or utility of this partnership is for developers at Xbox Games Studios, ZeniMax Media, and Activision Blizzard.
