Ubisoft debuts GenAI-powered Neo NPCs and gameplay prototype

Ubisoft has unveiled Neo NPCs, its first player-facing generative AI powered characters, at Game Developers Conference. The prototype allows players to interact with NPCs with distinct personalities and memories that allows conversations to drive gameplay. These Neo NPCs are enhanced with new neural functions allowing them to respond to players with unscripted dialogue, contextual awareness and real-time emotion and animation. This turns conversations into their own form of gameplay that can include information gathering and collaborative decision-making.

A team at Ubisoft’s Paris Studio led this R&D initiative with support from its production technology department. Unlike traditional NPCs, the team needed to program every detail — personalities, backstories, agendas and emotions — for these interactive Neo NPCs. As a result, every conversation is unique and responsive to players’ voice inputs and previous interactions while still maintaining continuity.