AI was predictably one of Epic's contributions to today's State of Unreal live , with creator platform VP Andrew Grant demoing a "conversation" with an LLM AI persona, one example of the "Persona Device" coming later this year. Tech heads simply cannot resist any opportunity to name things like Dr. Robotnik.
The intent was to show "how simple it is to set up a character for your game," which brings the unavoidable subtext of how simple it might be to replace a writer you would – gasp – have to pay. The method was back-and-forth with an AI trying to get Grant to press a button in-game. (I've outsmarted the computers once again; I would simply not press the button.) The result was a hackneyed conversation with a character that unavoidably lacks soul – not something I personally look for in games.
I did initially find myself nodding along with follow-up comments from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who, equipped with cargo pants, said, "They pressed the AI button, it might have been a bad idea, but in truth there's no un-pressing that button." Funny how this kind of rhetoric regularly comes from folks who are pressing that button so regularly and fiercely that their index fingers have calluses to rival lead guitarists.
Sweeney continues: "At Epic, we've been thinking about what this future of AI means for us and for the whole industry. When the world's on fire, we like to back up and remember our aims as game developers. It's to make fun games. And AI can help us with this."
You do have to wonder why the world is on fire – we're all trying to find the AI who did this – but Sweeney makes a fair point. AI can be a powerful tool. "And so we've come to see AI as an opportunity to have a multiplying force on human creatives," he says. I mean, I guess; enhance those pipelines, man.
Here's where my head stops nodding and my neck calcifies like a fossil. "The ability for a small team of indie developers to create characters with personality and infinite dialogue is a superpower," Sweeney reckons. This overlooks how small teams of indies already make characters with personality, something this Persona Device is incapable of, and that games don't need or want infinite dialogue because, for one of many things, that's just infinite ways to go off-script and reveal the soulless computer you are one-sidedly talking to.
But wait, the neck loosens: "The power to accelerate code development and 3D content development of all sorts is going to make game development better and more accessible for everybody," Sweeney concludes, before launching into his mandatory dig at Apple and pausing for applause.
Using AI to reduce busywork and streamline development processes might be good and all, in the same way machines have replaced a lot of repetitive physical tasks, but unless we're talking about Atlus JRPGs, I'm not particularly interested in seeing, let alone talking to, a Persona Device. I'll stick with characters written by creators capable of the conversation that represents half of all art, thanks.
Desperate to fight Steam, Epic burns money like firewood – but admits the Epic Games Store kind of sucks and "there's still a ton of work to be done" with "long overdue features."
