Transcription
[Music] San Francisco, home to the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC), as it's known, isn't like other game shows. It's not really about showing off new games. I think every type of developer is here; you know, whether you're a writer, whether you're working in narrative design, game design, level design. And this is the one chance that everyone can get together.
Trends come and go in video games. And the big one this year is everywhere you look on the expo floor. There's an AI solution to this, or an AI solution to that. But the big question is, what difference will all of this AI make to the games that we actually play? AI's presence is being felt in a number of different ways, from tools that allow developers to create elements of video game worlds just by using text prompts, to in-game characters that react in a more realistic way to the player.
Bloom says you're the one to help us tweak the plan. And AI and gaming particularly relates to how AI could improve gamers' experience by helping them play the games, or how it could enable developers to make games faster and cheaper. There's definitely a tension, and firstly, it's around jobs, uh, where you know, AI could take uh developers' jobs, and secondly, around training data. Where is the AI getting all the stuff that it uses to be able to generate, say, uh, a new skin or a new uh character outfit? And if you imagine uh the traditional game developer in the middle, they're squeezed by AI on one side—the robots making stuff—and user-generated content on the other—the people making stuff. So this traditional game development is going through a very challenging time.
Bravo 2, lead the way. Copy One.
One company embracing AI is Chinese tech behemoth Tencent. It's introduced an in-game assistant called Backle, or first FPS AI companion, who understands human language. That trips off the tongue, in position. The AI companion will be introduced into first-person shooter Arena Breakout. Its developers say, unlike regular in-game teammates, this one can understand complex spoken instructions.
"Run to those sandbags up front for cover, then to the car ahead."
"Copy that."
"I think in the future we can put this tech in maybe open-world RPGs. So imagine you can walk around the city and talk to everybody by using natural language."
"Search for a green box."
"Copy that."
We'll find out if this AI makes a good teammate when the feature launches later this year.
"Found it."
The GDC show floor is packed with indie developers with out-of-the-ordinary ideas for games and ways of controlling them.
"Stand up. Stand up. Stand up."
Including patting a giant kitty. Umbrellas as controllers, as well as seesaws. And they're not alone. Keyboard and mouse, gamepad. These are the things that we use to control video games. Anybody that's played a game will be familiar with them. But what about if there was a different method of interacting with the action on the screen? That's what this band on my wrist is doing. It's fitted with a variety of different sensors which are measuring my emotions. It actually has more sensors in it than you would find in a smartwatch. The onscreen action will alter depending on how I feel. Now this is a horror game demo.
"What happens if I get frightened?"
Called Oroide, it can be used to create a relaxing experience, or as we see here, something designed to do the opposite. And I can see the emotions that I'm feeling on this screen here.
"Spooky doors. Oh, mannequin. Okay, he's not doing anything. An even creepier factory space. Whoa. If you want to survive, stay calm."
If I don't want this mannequin to get me, I've got to try and calm down. And there's another one here. Okay, I'm going to make a run for it.
"Let's go for the door. Open. Open. Open."
On top of heart rate and skin temperature, the band measures galvanic skin response, which its developers say allows it to assess the emotional state of the player. Combining this with generative AI, changing gameplay elements based on how the player is feeling could lead to new types of player experience. Because the idea is to be able, in the near future, to have a really uh ultra-personalized game that only measures your emotion and adapts itself depending on what the game design is. If they want to stress you more, or they want, or the designer wants to relax or maintain you in a certain level of spectrum of emotions. The band is currently being pitched to developers.
The breadth of creativity on show at GDC 2025 demonstrates that even in the age of AI, the industry is still driven by ideas and human invention.