Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

Beyond the Script: Can AI Make NPCs Real? (Ep 250)

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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In the second half of our AI in gaming discussion, we turn to the rise of intelligent NPCs – and what happens when they start to think for themselves. Could AI make game worlds richer and more believable, or would it destroy the structure and chaos we love?

The team explore how realism can both enhance and break immersion, from the comedic unpredictability of NPCs in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to the eerie brilliance of the Shadow of Mordor Nemesis System, which made enemies remember and evolve from past encounters. There’s nostalgia for the “arrow to the knee” days, when NPCs were part of the joke, and concern that too much autonomy could strip away that sense of fun.

A discussion of the AI Darth Vader in Fortnite—who quickly went rogue and started swearing at players—highlights the dangers of unleashing learning systems in live environments. From there, the conversation moves into deeper territory: if NPCs become lifelike, will players form stronger emotional attachments? And what does it mean when games make us feel guilty for our virtual actions?

This episode explores the uneasy balance between innovation and control, and what the future of AI may hold for how we interact, connect, and care inside virtual worlds.

New episodes of Gaming the System every Thursday.

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alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

as I was walking past he was backing up. I realized he'd walked backwards into a torch on the wall. He'd started screaming and was on fire and he was on the floor like, ah, water. Water. And his friend was stood next to him like, ah. Like panicking and stuff. And then he eventually got up and he was fine and they both carried on doing whatever animation they were doing before. find that utterly hilarious.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

it came to the conclusion that. Humans love, war, famine, death, disaster, pain. And so it brutally slaughters of the people at the Halloween party.'cause that's the conclusion that the AI comes to. That's just another danger of ar e ai in what is it learning

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

Hi there, and, welcome to Gaming the System with myself, gem, Alex and Matt. And today we are continuing our conversation about AI and gaming. This is the second of a two-part AI dive, last. Episode we talked about the news that Microsoft and Google were bringing out gaming co-pilots who could support you through your gaming experience. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, check out that episode. Today I want to talk about when NPCs wake up. And, the NPC zeitgeist that, we have at the moment. So, NPC stands for non-player characters. They're your background characters. Providing atmosphere, plot twists and guidance and sometimes just being there to beat up and kill. In recent years, we've seen this concept of NPC being brought outta the gaming world and into the real world. So NPC can sometimes be thrown around as a bit of an insult. It usually means somebody who conforms, somebody who follows common thinking. Who isn't. Very interesting or doesn't have a lot to bring to the world it sits alongside the concept of main character energy and this idea that we're all living in some kind of simulation it can present itself in quite entertaining ways. I dunno if you guys have seen the videos of people pretending to be NPCs and walking around like NPCs interacting with each other and setting up scenes in a real world scenario. I saw this amazing one the other day where this guy had got everyone on the street. Probably about 50 people involved in setting up this sort of NPC scene. It's a real skill. The physicality of the, movement and the way they interact with one another can be really, really impressive to watch and quite fun to see. So there's a lot of people doing it that's a sort of more positive side of it. I wanted to explore how AI is going to impact NPCs and change the way that NPCs in games behave I think this is gonna be a deep episode I initially came into it from the news of, a project called Portal, which is where their training AI agents on. Primarily, first person shooter style games, and they're training them on lots of different games. Whereas recently, they've been generally training AI on a game. The AI learns to play a game. And then gain skills from that. What portal is doing is giving, ai, software access to multiple first person shooter games. Using those games to teach AI to make quick decisions, tactical decisions understand what's going on around it and, respond appropriately this is not about AI playing games. This is about training ais to be better at whatever it is that they're doing. I did explore this idea about. Training ais on first person shooters, which are, defined by their violence and aggression. But it's not about training AI to go out and shoot people. It is about training ais to think on their feet, to be quick, to come up with tactics in a variety of settings. I got thinking about the idea of what happens when AI start interacting with each other within a game. And when we say, we want our NPCs to be a bit more realistic, we want them to be doing, having lives that run in the background of our games and not just being on some kind of loop. How will that, impact our gaming experience. How will it impact our relationship with the characters in games? How will it shape our understanding of what NPC actually means at the moment? It can be used as a derogatory term, but if N PCs have almost their own little lives going on in these, in these worlds. Is it still a derogatory term? Is it still something we, aspire to not be. And what happens if those NPCs suddenly want to be the main characters in their games? I just thought I'd bring this subject to you and. See what you guys thought about it. So I'm just gonna throw out the first question, would you like to see NPCs with a bit more autonomy? Would you like to see them being less predictable, less scripted,

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

No, because so AI, it requires processing power and with game design, processing power is a premium. If you ask 99% of gamers, would you rather have an AI generated NPC environment, or ray tracing light or a couple of extra frames. I think gamers are always gonna choose that and. With NPC, like again, this is a, this is a, I'm, I'm really excited about this topic because it relates to the process of game development and the infrastructure of how these games work. The skill in making games is the appearance of realism if I walk out my front door and keep walking and swimming long enough, I'll eventually end up back where I am the world exists outside of here. But in games, you might think everything exists. When you see a building, you think, oh, there must be an inside that building. it's just an e it's an empty space because the game developers, you're not gonna see it. So it doesn't need to be rendered. The. kind of processing power needed to create a truly immersive NPC is just it's, it would be a scale that makes it unusable really because. The, and again, I think writers wouldn't want to do it either because they want to be in control of the narrative. If you've got an NPC that can do or be anything depending on the situation, it's just unnecessary. The best games already make it feel like the NPCs are real. And there's the difference between. Like main NPCs the background NPCs. So with background NPCs, they, they, they only need to be a very narrow thing because you are walking past them and. There, there's a real skill in making those NPCs interesting you can have little tidbits of conversations. You walk past, Hitman is the best at this because there, you could walk around. I'm still finding new little conversations as I go past. The illusion of depth with these things is another skill because they're, they're all normally one body type. Male, female. They have a handful of animations and a handful of reactions and lines. What makes up these characters fits very neatly into a streamlined bit of code. You can just slot that in and put it anywhere. Whereas to have to implement an AI model for an NPC would take massive amount of space Even if you, you, the idea of an AI being able to play a shooter game as if it was a human that you'd, you'd watch, they, they'd see the sprinting and jumping around, which is what people do in Fort Light's jumping and and then jumping.'cause that's the fastest way to move around. And it just, yeah, it just feels like there isn't a. I can't see a really beneficial way of properly leaning into the AI generated

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

NPC

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

firstly.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Really, I hadn't thought about it from a processing perspective, Matt, so thank you for shining a light on that. I think it depends on the type of game to how interesting it could get. I was thinking while you were talking about the pros and cons and kind of weighing up in my head, and I think definitely am currently too attached to the silly behavior of NPCs that you find. Currently in games. I can give you plenty examples. But when NPCs do stupid things or say scripted lines over and over, it becomes sort of this in joke within the game. It's part of the fun in games like Oblivion and Skyrim, everyone knows the lines are, I, I took a arrow to the knee now I can't be in a literal anymore. Or would you like a taste of my sweet roll? You know. loves those sorts of lines. And then you've got the sorts of things that happen, quite as spontaneously as well. I was playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey and there were these two men in a small cave opening, I was walking very slowly between them, sort of trying to be natural and, finding my way to the next mission marker. One of them started talking to me and as I was walking past he was backing up. as I'd gone by, I realized he'd walked backwards into a torch on the wall.'cause he'd started screaming and he was on fire and he was on the floor like, ah, water. Water. And his friend was stood next to him like, ah. Like panicking and stuff. And then he eventually got up and he was fine and they both carried on doing whatever animation they were doing before. find that utterly hilarious. And that's one of the things I love about

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

gaming

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

in an open world, particularly all those types of games, is that

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

NPCs

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

are just very silly, fun. It's so funny the types of things you can get to happen. Particularly if you start wearing explosives at them or something, you know, you just muck around. It's part of having, having fun of the game. So if AI were to get involved, there is scope for more chaos that way, but it won't quite be the same as it is now, I feel like we'd lose some of the traditional fun of gaming with NPCs, and what you come to expect from the way they behave. We all know how we expect them to behave and part of it I find very funny, like the way they're animated or the way they move scenes or I dunno if you guys have seen all the mods that they've done to oblivion where they get them to move super fast. And then they're sort of rocked all around. find that hilarious as well. I think it could be an interesting experiment in an open world game, but if there's a story led game, it certainly wouldn't work because that would throw your story right out of whack. the AI started trying to do something off of peace, it would, it would break the game. So you wouldn't want it in a game that has to have structure. Otherwise you'd lose all control

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

the only instance that I can think of where an AI led character development thing is, of course, the nemesis system

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Yes.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

from.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

mention that.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

The Sha from the Mordor Middle Earth shadow of war and shadow of Mordor game,

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Hmm.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

where it feels like every single orc chief that you face feels like a completely unique character. They all have their own names, they all have their own dialogue, but it is randomly, procedurally generated their attributes.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

yeah.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

Then the way that they've killed you, and then

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Their

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

the strengths and weaknesses so that's, the best that it's been done so far. Unfortunately, Warner Brothers somehow managed to copyright the Nemesis system

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Yes.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

Words With Friends has ripped off Scrabble

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

hmm.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

Over a decade now with no problem. Apparently the studio that made the middle Earth Games had been working on a Wonder Woman game that had the nemesis system integrated into it somehow, and Water Brothers canceled it.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Oh yeah, that is

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

The guiding light of

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

AI

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

generated NPCs is

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

dead.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

It is frustrating'cause there was, I've never seen anything like that system in any other game and I thought it was fantastic the way that if you killed an orc it might come back and remember you and then it would have extra strength because it was on a vengeance mission where it would have its arm missing where you'd cut it off the time before

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

You can cut them in half, and they come back.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

They'd come back, but they'd come back more and more injured and more and more changed. And, it was just fascinating. I think it was brilliant. You sort of built up the relationships with these who suddenly become even more of a bigger enemy that you'd have to drop everything and fight. Because you're like, oh no, he's back again. We need to get him

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

And it's satisfying turning them to your side as well.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Yeah, definitely. So it's a real shame that that has been copyrighted and seemingly taken out of the gaming sphere.'cause I think that definitely, I agree, Matt is, does have potential to be a way for AI to maybe integrate itself into

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

world

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

of, of NPCs.

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

I think you made really interesting points there. The processing, issue is a big factor when it comes to AI the effect of autonomous, NPC characters on scripts and storylines could be quite calamitous really if it wasn't properly managed. It really appeals to me because when I was, coding on, at the text base game that I helped out with, one of the things I was heavily involved with was, NPC characters that had very involved scripts and therefore could actually trigger certain actions based on the actions of the players. Now that sounds like what. NPCs do these days, but back then in text form, that wasn't something that happened. I loved the idea that, you know, as a player you would walk into a room and there would be this whole scene just playing out before you, without any actual seeming activity on your part. The trigger was. Player enters room, then the scene would play on. So, but if you, if another player came into the room, it would carry on. You had this semblance that these NPCs were living at. An existence beyond the actual players. That really appealed to me, and I think that's why the idea is really, exciting. I wonder what would happen if, NPCs became more realistic and more sort of autonomous, would there be an increased chance of players connecting with those NPCs? More likelihood of, emotional connections or parasocial? Connections I think it would be very easy. For that to become more intense if these NPC characters felt more real, made more engaging decisions. Let's think more about them in, in the open world games maybe in Horizon have somebody that you. Visit Who happens to live in this one particular camp? And you could create a connection with that NPC, would that be a good thing? Would it be a bad thing? Is it just a crazy thing?

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

I think that we've talked in the last episode about the pitfalls of AI in terms of its reliability because AI can hallucinate and then all of a sudden we have Skynet and it's nuked the planet out of nowhere we've all played games where an NPC isn't where they're meant to be or they're stuck somewhere and then you can't progress until you've found this NPC having an NPC that can pretend it's the player. If you give an NPC, the ability to do anything that the player can do. The possibilities are too broad most likely, the more complex and involved something becomes, the AI is gonna get less and less consistent in the way that it reacts to things. Which is why NPCs at the moment have a very set of things that they're able to do so that they don't break out and start interacting in the world in a way that, as Alex said, breaks the game. When it comes to main characters, the one who should definitely behave like a main character should be the, the main antagonist. Because they're the ones that you are, you are pushing against, and that's what makes the story happen. And it should be like with Negan in The Walking Dead. we'd started the series from Negan's point of view, that would've been just as fascinating as seeing it from Rick's point of view from the start. And that's how you should feel about the supporting NPC characters. then if you're going through like the, the crowds in Assassin Creed games, the, the NPCs are built in the way that they, they don't need to be complicated. They don't all need to be complex and sophisticated. just need to be there. As you walk past you don't think there's no one here in this street, or they're all doing the same thing, it can break your immersion even if there are lots of people in Cyberpunk 2077, one of the angry Joe guys pointed out that they're all the same height. Then you go, well, if, if he had them doing the exact same thing and they were different heights the randomized. Appearance of the is critical as well, because even playing cyber Trunk 27, last year, there were like five different character models you can just walk down the main street and there are four copies of the same NPC walking along. And so the skill of making good NPCs is. them appear realistic.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

hmm.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

And it doesn't, we don't need it to be as realistic. The developers need the writing skill and the design skill to make these NPCs flesh out the world

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

which can be done with ai, just like very restricted set of guidelines. I completely agree with you that you have to have restrictions. Otherwise, it would just get crazy and, distracting. It would stop being a street scene and start being. A game in itself. It would be overwhelming, from a player perspective.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

If you walk through it and, just play it, it feels like a completely. Like organic ecosystem of NPCs,

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

but

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

beneath it, there are very clearly defined subsections. So you've got in a crowd, there are crowd NPCs that don't count as characters. If you, uh, hit one of them with like, with a stun dart they'll die and they're. They're there to just fill, make the world fill out. And then there are interactable,

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

NPCs

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

that are, that move around. The other ones stay where they are basically. And the interactive NPCs are the ones that have their loops and reacts to things properly. And then you've got the enforcers, which are the guards, and the targets. Every single thing that you see on the map has their very limited set of behaviors and reactions to things, together it feels really organic. That's the role the AI plays do you want to be able to set fire to every NPC? Like in Assassin's Creed Odyssey? You could go, oh. NPCs can't be set on fire, or the NPC if you do set it on fire, they could die. You don't just roll around in the sand for a bit and then back to standing exactly where they were. It is an, effective and efficient way of using ai that I think is what people should be aiming for.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

I was gonna ask you both, had you heard about debacle with Darth Vader in Fortnite. I hadn't heard about it at all. It was reported in May this year. Basically, they put the character of Darth Vader in Fortnite so that when you, I dunno how Fortnite works, I've never played it, but basically when you get to the ground or whatever. Darda would be there and you could have a conversation with him in real time would tell you when something was about to go down. Like maybe when the map shrinks they used AI to. Get his voice right. Essentially. They used, James L. Jones. I think he did work, uh, to have his voice preserved for Disney. But then they've used it like this, which isn't the best, and it ended up being part of the SAGAFRA thing. But also through conversations with players very quickly Dar Fader. Would start swearing at players and got a little bit racist as I'm not sure exactly of the context, but I think it's an important lesson. If you're gonna drop AI into an environment with a toxic gaming community, your AI is gonna pick up toxic habits and so it proved to be true. So I think there's a risk there you could have an AI character companion you can talk, with, but what kind of responses are you gonna get? How is it learning from its environment? Is it picking up all these toxic habits from the people around it?

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

A fabulous mission. I've just remembered from Fallout four it's a, short Halloween mission you go to this exclusive club thing, and it's full of. Dead people and people who have been driven insane by, Some kind of gas that's in there. And it's gassing you as well. if you read through the terminals, you find messages from the programmer who does all the tech stuff,

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

yeah.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

He'd been playing with the new AI interface to make it spookier. It got so good that eventually he was fired on his last day he got drunk he was training it to come up with scary Halloween spooky party ideas. so he'd been sending it, putting in like literature like. All the scary horror novels from the last century, and it would come up with things that it learned from that and go, okay, ghosts, zombies, tombstones, graveyards, et cetera. then on his last day, he submitted all the newspapers and news programs from the last century a hundred years worth of war, famine, disease, death, disaster, pain, and it came to the conclusion that. Humans love, war, famine, death, disaster, pain. And so it brutally slaughters of the people at the Halloween party.'cause that's the conclusion that the AI comes to. That's just another danger of ar e ai in what is it learning

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Yeah,

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

How it's gonna do it. Using the estate of James Old Jones, selling his voice just awful and just repellent.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Yeah.

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

One of the things that happened as a result of this, Darth Vader ai, was that, there was a lot of, complaints and, and things around the use of people's voices in this sort of set scenario. So, it's certainly RA raised that issue. And I think there's a thing about learning it was swearing and saying all sorts of inappropriate stuff. That's why one of the key watchwords around AI is always guardrails. We have to put guardrails in for any of this, whatever we're going to be using AI for. We need to have guardrails put in place about what we as a society want. What we think is acceptable and isn't acceptable to ensure that these things don't end up murdering. Humanity. But I'm not gonna go down that route because it gets quite depressing quite quickly. All of the, AI things that have been created so far. Are not self-aware. They're not sentient. Depending on who you speak to, we're either a year away or 20 years away from reaching that point. Let's say they're not, sentient, but they are. Semi autonomous within a game environment what does it do to people and generally younger people Who are the, biggest gaming group to attack these? NPCs kill these NPCs, they're collateral damage as part of the game. They're the zombies that you are slaughtering. They're the bad guys that you're shooting. What does that do to. Gamers when they become more realistic and seemingly real.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

I think this can be designed conventionally because the, for the time that I've felt properly bad about killing an NPC that I'm meant to be killing is in the last, it was part two because when you are fighting the enemies and you kill one, they'll go, Lily, no. And it just makes you feel like, oh my God, all these people have names and they react when I kill one of them. If they didn't say their names, then I wouldn't react that way it depends on the type of game. If you've got a game where the point is killing people then the tone of it doesn't need to be, oh, are, are no bad people. There are just damaged people and your being bad by killing these flawed people. we just need it to be nice and simple. Some people are bad guys and you need people and things to kill and come up against. Not everything needs to be deep. It comes down to educating younger people.

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

There is research being done. It's called lrp, which you might have heard is live action, role play. But they're calling it language agent, role play for open world games, and they have. Created ais that have impressive problem solving skills with defined settings and brief timelines, yet with ever evolving complexities of the open world simulations. They have the flexibility to adapt to those complex environments they include a cognitive architecture that encompasses memory processing and decision making with the ability to interact with their environment, and learn from feedback within that action space. So they are actually creating. Personalities based around that information that's coming into them within these game settings, so that they are able then to hold this information and create consistent personalities which continue to evolve, in these scenarios. I expect a lot of this role play is coming as a result of. The, chat bots the boyfriend, girlfriend, partner bots that we're seeing. There is research going into this. They are being created already and I think the fact that we are. People who probably think about this stuff a lot more than the average person out there because we're interested in these topics. We're interested in, the intersection between technology and society and gaming and equality and accessibility we don't have the answers or know what the guardrails need to be or how this could, benefit or harm these gaming environments. And I think there's a lot of research and stuff going on out there without any of these questions having been understood or even considered, it worries me. I mean, on one hand I'm extremely excited about what AI might bring and the sort of future is now and all that s excitement, but then on the hand. It's quite terrifying. What? This could unleash on a very unsuspecting set of brains

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

yeah, I definitely think with a well written NPC, have a chance to build a lot of engagement, from the player, so the player feels more engaged and invested in the game as a whole. I think that's a positive impact from having a well-rounded n pc. Matt was talking about the most stressed he'd ever felt, hurting an NPC. I, I think for me it's when there's animal. Companions involved. So for example, in Ghost of Oshima, I was practicing a stance and accidentally swung my sword into my horse Soah. He went Ooh. And ran away. I was like, oh my God, I'm sorry, SOAH, please stay.'Cause I'd already formed a bond.'cause whenever you get on your horse, Jen will say, you just have the best boy. Or like one day we will go for a peaceful ride, and you're like, I want this to happen on his horse. And you build up that relationship. So to actually hurt Sora without realizing that it can happen, I was really upset. I was like, oh no, my horse is hurt. And that's probably the most emotional reaction I've had to, attacking. An unplayable character, by accident. but yeah, definitely I think humans, or as animal lovers, or I think we probably all are animal lovers, animals and games. They have a very big emotional connection and they barely need to do anything. They just need to look vaguely like an animal. It's interesting, isn't it?

jem_2_09-27-2025_154841:

Absolutely. I think we've dug really deep, but I also feel like we've only scraped the surface of this topic. It is a really interesting one and will continue to, perplex and evx us, as we go forward and as more and more layers are peeled off this whole AI world. An interesting conversation around, AI and what might happen if the NPCs start to wake up. And, thank you both so much for your input. Fascinating and enlightening as. Always. We're here every Thursday with some interesting gaming related content we'd love to hear what you think about AI and gaming and what you think about AI and NPCs and will we all soon be NPCs in our own computer games going forward? And yeah, check us out every Thursday. Thank you very much. Bye.

matt-guest167_2_09-27-2025_154841:

All right.

alex--she-her-_2_09-27-2025_154843:

Bye.