The technology behind AI RPGs has seen significant progress in recent years, particularly when it comes to procedural content generation and responsive storytelling. For instance, AI technologies such as GPT-4 can produce mangled dialogues and quests, giving dawn till dusk options to players. However even with these abilities, AI still has not reached the creative depths that humans have. In fact, a 2022 report suggested that RPGs created using AI tools contained just 12% of their entire content made entirely of AI-generated text, and the remaining amount being entirely human made. Although AI can generate rich, vibrant responses at an incredible velocity, it lacks the emotional depth, cultural nuance and sophisticated world-building that human writers can offer.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for instance. This classic RPG has more than 60,000 lines of human-authored dialogue. Existing AI systems like AI Dungeon use procedural generation to provide infinite quests, but even with that impressive tech, the content still lacks the narrative coherence and meaningful character building that humans provide. Take The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which has been praised for its intricate narratives and ability to explore larger themes like morality, war, and identity within each quest—an aspect AI simply isn’t capable of replicating in the same way just yet.
As in game design, where AI assists in building dynamic settings and obstacles, it still lacks the capacity to develop the emotional connection between players and human-created narratives that remains integral to the process. AI systems, though efficient, cannot anticipate player emotions and reactions the way creative humans do. Take Final Fantasy XV, where characters created by humans and their emotional bonds create layers of engagement. AI can’t yet give you the nuance of relationships and character growth that make RPGs stick.
In the end, Ai is a great tool in the game development process, it helps human designers to be more creative, but it is still not right there yet to replicate human minds full artistic and emotional creativity. AI RPGs may one day catch up with human-driven narratives as tech continues to develop, but right now they’re still very dependent upon humans injecting life into truly engaging worlds and stories.
For a look at how AI is shaping the future of RPGs, have a gander at Ai RPG.