Where Winds Meet player convinces one of the game's NPCs they're pregnant with his baby

Generative AI, meet videogame players

Sure, you could tease around the edges of generative AI videogame development, spitting out an Anno 117 loading screen here, belching out Arc Raiders NPC voice barks there, or you could just go the whole hog and hook your characters straight up to an LLM. What could possibly go wrong?

In related news, as reported by cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer, players of Everstone Studios wuxia-themed RPG Where Winds Meet have got NPCs to provide them with cooking advice for potatoes and ketchup, plan a travel itinerary for a trip to Beijing, and they've even convinced one guard that they're pregnant with his baby.

It turns out that when you interact with NPCs in the game, rather than be presented with set options of what to say to the characters, you instead have a chat box in which you're free to type whatever you please. Those lines then are sent off as a prompt to an LLM and then you receive a response somewhat tailored to fit the personality of the character which you're speaking to.

For instance, in one interaction shared on Reddit, a player asks "What can I cook at home? I only have ketchup and potatoes". The NPC then replies, "(thinks for a moment, then suggests) You could make fried potatoes and use ketchup as a sauce. It's simple but can be quite tasty." When the player asks if ketchup was available during the Song dynasty, the NPC replies "No, ketchup wasn't available [...]. Tomatoes weren't known in China back then."

The interactions can lead to tangible outcomes, with NPCs you anger kicking off fights or increasing your reputation. Though, even then players are finding you don't need to act in good faith, instead simply implying positive actions can be recognised as such. As one Reddit user points out, if you see a hungry family, telling them "I'll give you food" results in a reputation gain, without needing to actually give them the item.

The players posting to Reddit seem to be happy with the use of AI, with one saying, "THIS is how AI should be used in video games. Not to replace artists OR PROGRAMMERS but to have GOOD NPCS." Apparently replacing writers is just fine. As Nic says, "The promised land of never having to experience a game the way it was intended again" is nearly here.

So as not to miss the naffness of this system, while some players are getting roughly in character responses about ketchup and flight plans, others are just being presented with rote information about the Godot game engine. This isn't some exciting new frontier for NPC dialogue, it's just the same generic text that pours out of LLMs, it's just appearing in an unusual environment.

Another thing to note is that, unlike Arc Raiders and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which at least have disclosures on their Steam pages, stating that generative AI was used in the games' development, there is nothing on Where Winds Meet's page revealing this egregious example.

AI tools are clearly not going away and will only become increasingly prevalent, but in Where Winds Meet, we have an example of the immediacy with which generative AI shits the bed when it comes into contact with players.