Ubisoft, the French video game giant responsible for blockbuster titles such as Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs, has introduced a new tool that could revolutionize the process of creating dialogue for video games. The tool, named Ghostwriter, is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform designed to generate first drafts of “barks” – background chatter heard in open-world games.

The process of creating barks is a time-consuming and highly detailed task, requiring writers to produce each piece of dialogue individually. However, with Ghostwriter, writers input the character and type of interaction they wish to create, and the tool generates several variations, each with two slightly different options, for writers to review. As the writers edit the drafts, the Ghostwriter updates, ideally producing more tailored options moving forward.

The idea behind Ghostwriter is to save writers time, allowing them to focus on more substantial narrative elements, such as cutscenes and character development. Ubisoft believes that Ghostwriter will enable its writers to complete repetitive tasks more quickly and effectively, thus giving them more time and freedom to develop engaging gaming worlds.

Although Ubisoft refers to Ghostwriter as an “AI” tool, it is worth noting that a platform is essentially a machine-learning tool. Ghostwriter does not have the capability to think creatively or independently. Rather, it works by analyzing existing data and generating new responses based on that data.

One of the key challenges Ubisoft faces is getting staff to use the new tool effectively. The company’s R&D scientist, Ben Swanson, acknowledges that integrating Ghostwriter into production is the biggest challenge at present. To facilitate this, the production team created Ernestine, a back-end tool that makes it easier for staff to create new machine-learning models in Ghostwriter.