Ubisoft’s Ghostwriter: An AI Tool for NPC Dialogue Creation

Ubisoft’s R&D department, La Forge, has developed an AI tool called Ghostwriter to help with one of the most challenging tasks faced by video game writers – creating unique and interesting barks for hundreds of non-player characters (NPCs). 

Introducing Ubisoft Ghostwriter, an AI tool developed in-house that aims to support our scriptwriters by generating the first draft of our NPC barks – the phrases or sounds made by NPCs when players interact with the game world.

This tool was created hand-in-hand with scriptwriters to create more realistic NPC interactions by generating variations on a piece of dialogue. See how our teams will use AI to handle repetitive tasks, and free up time to work on other core game elements.”

According to Ubisoft, Ghostwriter generates first drafts of barks, freeing up scriptwriters’ time for other essential tasks. The tool is a result of a collaboration between Ben Swanson, R&D Scientist at La Forge Montreal, and members of the La Forge team in China, whose expertise in UX/UI and web application development resulted in an operational tool.

Ghostwriter uses a pairwise comparison method of evaluation and improvement, where scriptwriters choose and edit the samples generated by the tool. The process involves creating a character and selecting the type of interaction or utterance the scriptwriter wants to generate. 

Ubisoft’s Ghostwriter proposes a select number of variations, and the scriptwriter chooses the best one, providing feedback for further improvements. With thousands of selections made by humans, the tool becomes more effective and accurate.

Ghostwriter’s ambition is to empower narrative designers to create their own AI systems tailored to their specific design needs. To achieve this, the team created a user-friendly back-end tool website called Ernestine, which allows anyone to create their own machine-learning models used in Ghostwriter. 

By collaborating closely with scriptwriters, the team aims to learn their needs and fit the tool into the unique worlds of each game. Ghostwriter has the potential to be an integral part of the production pipeline, freeing up time for creative and essential storytelling.

Undoubtedly, it sounds like an impressive tool to ‘aid’ human scriptwriters. A human scriptwriter is still required to polish the drafts produced by Ghostwriter, so this makes the process efficient or more time-consuming? Let’s discuss this in the comment section below.