Nvidia’s New Tech Turns AI into Your New PUBG Mates
Nvidia is enhancing its digital ‘ACE’ characters, which use generative AI for in-game conversations, to function as autonomous game characters. At CES 2025, Nvidia demonstrated this advancement with a new PUBG teammate, the ‘PUBG Ally,’ which will assist players by communicating using game-specific language, providing strategic recommendations, finding loot, driving vehicles, and engaging in combat.
These characters are driven by small language models (SLMs) capable of human-like decision-making and multi-modal SLMs for vision and audio perception. Additionally, Nvidia’s AI teammates will feature in other games like ‘Naraka: Bladepoint’ and the upcoming ‘inZOI’, offering dynamic gameplay and support to players.
In PUBG, the ‘PUBG Ally’ is designed to be a co-playable character (CPC) that can understand and support player goals. It communicates using game-specific lingo, provides real-time strategic recommendations, finds and shares loot, drives vehicles, and engages in combat with other players. This AI teammate aims to enhance the gaming experience by offering support similar to that of a human player.
Nvidia’s ACE technology utilizes small language models (SLMs) capable of planning at human-like frequencies required for realistic decision-making. These models enable AI characters to perceive their environment through vision and audio cues, allowing them to act and react in ways that mimic human behavior. This advancement is expected to create more dynamic and immersive game worlds.
Beyond PUBG, AI characters built with ACE are coming to other games as well. Naraka: Bladepoint Mobile PC Version will get a ‘local inference AI Teammate feature‘ in March 2025, while ‘Naraka: Bladepoint’ on PC will receive the feature later in the year. These AI teammates can join your party, battle alongside you, find specific items, swap gear, offer suggestions on skills to unlock, and make plays to help achieve victory.
Krafton’s upcoming life simulation game called ‘inZOI’ will also feature CPCs known as ‘Smart Zoi.’ These AI companions are expected to enhance the gameplay experience by providing dynamic interactions and support within the game world. Additionally, Nvidia mentions that ACE characters can serve as bosses, with plans for their inclusion in boss encounters in Wemade Next’s ‘MIR5’.
While these advancements promise to revolutionize in-game AI interactions, it’s important to note that the demonstrations provided by Nvidia are heavily edited and not live. As such, the actual performance of these AI teammates in real-world gaming scenarios remains to be seen. Nonetheless, the integration of AI-driven characters marks a significant step toward more immersive and responsive gaming experiences.
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