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In a potentially helpful application of generative AI, Sony has patented a "ghost" assistance system that would help players beat games by having a phantom character directly show them how to complete certain tasks or just finish them automatically.
As All About AI spotted, Sony's newly surfaced April 2025-published patent (filed September 2024) describes an AI "trained using training footage of gameplay of the game to identify a scenario occurring in the context of the gameplay of the player." Welcome to patent speech, folks. When prompted by the player, through a bespoke interface, button press, gesture, verbal inputs via audio devices, or some combination of these or other methods, the AI would share (via "interactive conversation") or directly demonstrate how to beat sections of a game.
From the patent's verbiage and its attached drawings, this system sounds like watching an overlaid version of your character conjured and controlled by an AI. Picture the player phantoms attached to FromSoftware's iconic messages and bloodstains, but much smarter and more dynamic. A little guy appears to show you where to go, what to do, or even to "provide example controller input sequences."
Rather than Atreus giving you hints on solving puzzles in God of War: Ragnarok, for instance, a ghost Kratos – the ghost Ghost of Sparta – might physically wander around fiddling with all the puzzle pieces in the right order.
This AI is meant to help solve modern gaming frustrations and challenges, Sony suggests. "Although video game technology has seen many advances, some players find themselves in need of assistance," the patent reasons. If nothing else I could see such a system as an immense accessibility win.
"Games become very complicated, so players who are not experts oftentimes quit playing or find it hard to complete tasks," the patent continues. "Players are able to do research for the game or even lookup prior gameplays on internet sites, but that process is time consuming and many times not very relevant to tasks and/or scenarios currently being encountered by the player." (Hey, we're an internet site, and our guide team rocks!)
The patent proposes four interconnected modes for this AI. Story mode would "compile a ghost narrative of only essential story pieces" so you can follow the ghost through the main storyline – the critical path, basically. In combat mode, you'd see more examples of how to fight. Exploration mode would focus on "discovery moments and collecting of new and potentially rare items, weapons, new areas, and the like."
Finally, "full game mode," which I've seen some people misinterpret as the AI taking direct control of your character like an older sibling summoned to just beat this part, essentially combines the three other modes "to lead the user through the game as it is normally sequentially played."
If you do want the AI to literally play for you, look instead to a fifth, separate hypothetical: "Complete mode," which would have the AI "actually completing game tasks and advancing the player" instead of just showing you how it's done. You, the player, can simply follow the ghost around and receive credit for its actions.
The rub, as I understand it, is that you'd get to choose how much assistance you need, and then decide if you actually want to do it yourself. Which, interestingly, isn't far from a central generative AI debate in game development: what is worth doing yourself? To many developers, the answer is everything.
Importantly, "the ghost assistance can be switched on and off at the direction of the player." This addresses a common complaint with some current and proposed AI features: they can get obnoxious, and may be difficult or impossible to fully disable even if unwanted.
This is what gave me pause when Microsoft, which has shoehorned its often frustrating Copilot app into everything it can, commissioned and shared a study that found 79% of gamers are "open to help from AI" in some form. Its sample size of 1,500 didn't instill much confidence since we didn't know how those respondents were selected, nor did we know the specifics of the AI-related questions they were asked. Microsoft didn't specify how that AI would help, and since my experience with Microsoft's in-house AI has been pretty bad, I was fairly gun-shy; I'd at least be more open to something I can turn off like a difficulty setting.
Even if this patent did eventually manifest as an in-game feature for PlayStation games – and Sony patents a lasso for the moon every other month, so don't bet on it coming to fruition – it wouldn't be the first time that games have offered this kind of assistance.
Sony's already dabbled in spiritually similar pointers with PlayStation Game Help, Microsoft has Gaming Copilot, and let's not forget Nintendo Super Guide. Some of these function more as search engines or tip libraries while others deliver a more hands-on guide. You could fairly argue that plenty of NPC companions serve a similar role.
For this ghost AI, specifically, my mind can't escape the FromSoftware phantom motif: press a button, watch the ghost of somebody do the thing, and then do the thing yourself. For "Complete mode," I suppose the comparison would be Elden Ring Spirit Ashes that are so strong they can solo a boss while you cheer from the sidelines. Black Knife Tiche, my beloved.
Or as this immensely amusing example from the patent illustrates: "The player can say 'how do I jump the river' The assistance Al engine will then look to the Al model to determine how the river should be jumped, and the ghost character can speak back to the player to explain how to jump the river. In another embodiment, the ghost character can simply demonstrate how to jump the river."
At last, we can jump the river.
