Non-player characters enhance the depth of our games and stories

Non-player characters (NPCs) have been a part of games since the earliest days of the medium. One of the earliest examples of NPCs can be found in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons where players can encounter story-controlled characters that add color to the adventure. With advances in artificial intelligence (AI), these characters are now really coming to life.

In early games, NPCs were simple obstacles to overcome or enemies to defeat. As games evolved, they began to take on more nuanced roles, such as quest-givers, merchants, or companions. In other mediums such as film, NPCs present themselves as supporting or secondary characters. These are characters are not the protagonist but play important roles in the story. Maybe as the sidekick or the love interest, they support the main character’s journey and often intersect with the main plot to provide context. They add depth and complexity to the story and help to make it more engaging and immersive for the audience.

The film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) plays with the idea of NPCs in a unique way. The main characters of the film are transported from their real world into a game world, where they take on the form of avatars with unique abilities. Within this world, there are also NPCs who provide quests and challenges for the players to complete to progress through the game. 

One of the interesting twists in this film is that the NPCs are aware of their status as non-player characters within the game world. They follow a set of scripted behaviors and dialogue but show moments of self-awareness and can react to the players’ actions in unexpected ways. For example, the main characters encounter an NPC named Nigel, who acts as a guide and mentor for the players. When one of the players deviates from the script and asks Nigel about his life outside of the game world, Nigel becomes flustered, showing that he is aware of his status as a fictional character within the game world but can’t break out of his pre-defined story arc. By playing with the concept of NPCs in this way, Jumanji creates a unique blend of video game and movie tropes and offers a fresh take on the concept of player-character interactions within a game world.

With the evolution of AI and the increasing utility of tools such as ChatGPT, NPCs in games are becoming increasingly sophisticated. An AI running in the background enables NPCs to interact with players in more complex ways. Future games will likely see even more advanced NPCs that are capable of more complex conversations and behaviors. NPCs could potentially:

• Learn player actions and adapt their own actions to the player’s behavior, creating a more dynamic and personalized gaming experience
• Maintain their own schedules and routines, allowing players to observe and interact with them in a more natural way

Such game customization to individual player actions will create more engaging games, as players are able to explore and interact with a convincing, persistent game world and its people. 

The boundary between games and films is also blurring, as games lean more on classic narrative screenplays and actors to tell better stories and create deeper experiences. Another movie that scripts the life of an NPC, but this time as the protagonist, is the 2021 film Free Guy. In this movie, a bank teller discovers that he’s actually an NPC inside an open world video game and becomes increasingly self aware as the plot progresses.  

Overall, the history of NPCs in games has been one of increasing complexity and sophistication, and AI technology is likely to play a major role in shaping the future of game design and development.