AI teammates are reaching players in short tests
Game characters have always followed scripts. A new kind runs on chatbot technology: it listens, answers aloud and sometimes plays as a teammate. Several of the biggest companies are testing it, which raises questions about whose voice it uses and what it may say.
What is a co-playable character?
An NPC, or non-player character, is any character in a game you do not control, such as a shopkeeper, an enemy, or a sidekick. A co-playable character is a new kind of NPC powered by AI. Instead of standing around waiting for you to talk to it, it plays alongside you: it follows your directions, makes its own decisions, and reacts to what is happening.
Where it stands
An AI Darth Vader appeared in Fortnite in May 2025, was made to swear within hours, and drew a labor charge from the actors' union. In June 2026 Krafton put an AI squadmate into PUBG for a two-week test, and Epic has since given 36 Fortnite characters AI voices made with consenting actors. None is yet a permanent feature, and no company has said how many players used it. Quantic Foundry's survey found 83% of players opposed to AI-generated dialogue.
Timeline
2023
Xbox signs up an AI character company
Microsoft's Xbox announces a multi-year partnership with Inworld AI to build tools for game characters whose dialogue and quests are generated as the game runs, rather than written in advance.
2024
Ubisoft shows characters you can talk to
At the Game Developers Conference in March 2024, Ubisoft shows NEO NPC, a prototype of game characters that hold a spoken conversation with the player.
2025
Nvidia moves from characters that talk to characters that act
At the CES trade show, the chip maker Nvidia widens its ACE toolkit from conversation to what it calls autonomous game characters, which perceive, plan and act like human players. It names the makers of PUBG, inZOI and Naraka: Bladepoint as partners.
An AI Darth Vader in Fortnite is made to swear within hours
Epic Games adds a Darth Vader to Fortnite who converses with players in an AI copy of the late James Earl Jones's voice. Players quickly get him to swear. On 19 May the actors' union SAG-AFTRA files a labor charge against an Epic subsidiary, saying AI had replaced its members' voice work without notice or bargaining.
California's chatbot law exempts game characters that stay on topic
California's law on companion chatbots, signed in October 2025, does not cover a bot that is a feature of a video game and only replies about the game, provided it cannot discuss mental health, self-harm, sex or unrelated subjects.
Krafton calls itself an 'AI First' company and shows an AI teammate
Krafton, the South Korean maker of the shooter PUBG, declares itself an AI First company. A week later it shows PUBG Ally, an AI squadmate that can fetch requested items and revive fallen teammates.
Ubisoft tests AI squadmates with a few hundred players
Ubisoft reveals Teammates, its first playable experiment with generative AI: a shooter whose squadmates take spoken orders. It has been tested with a few hundred players. 'They can improvise, but we still set the rules and direct the story,' Ubisoft says of the characters.
Most surveyed players oppose AI-written dialogue
A survey of 1,799 players by Quantic Foundry finds 85% negative about generative AI in games. 83% oppose AI-generated dialogue, and 77% oppose AI-generated quests, up from 46% a year earlier.
GamesMarkt, Marcel Kleffmann, on Quantic Foundry (22 December 2025)
2026
Fortnite lets creators build characters that talk
Epic opens a tool called Conversations to the people who build games inside Fortnite. It lets them make characters that players talk to by voice. Epic bans romantic personas and any that give medical or mental-health advice, and creators cannot publish games that use the tool while it is experimental.
PUBG's AI teammate reaches players for two weeks
PUBG Ally runs as a two-week test from 17 June, in a side mode, on one map, for players with an Nvidia RTX graphics card. The AI partner, Ella, takes voice commands in Korean, Chinese and English. Krafton calls it an early step.
Epic gives 36 Fortnite characters AI voices
Epic announces AI voices for 36 of its own Fortnite characters, made with independent actors who agreed to have voice models built from their performances. It schedules Conversations to leave its experimental stage on 30 July.
The European Commission writes rules for talking characters inside games
The Commission's draft KIDS Act of 17 September 2026 covers AI companions and chatbots reachable by minors. They may not use designs that simulate human relationships in ways likely to create emotional dependency, may not carry a child's earlier conversations into later ones by default, must be tested for risks to children before launch and monitored afterwards, and are open to under-13s only through parental control tools. A chatbot built into a game may not switch on automatically, may not be pushed at children, and must be easy to turn off. Enforcement runs through the AI Act. It is a proposal.
European Commission, The KIDS Act explained (17 September 2026)
Consequences
012026
AI voices move work outside the union contract
SAG-AFTRA's complaint over Darth Vader was that an AI voice had taken work from its members. Video Games Chronicle notes that it is unclear whether the 36 actors who agreed to Epic's voice models are union members.
022026
A teammate who is always available
Tom Souter of Rogue argues that an AI partner solves the practical problems of team games: finding people to play with, matching their skill, and avoiding abuse. In doing so, he writes, it makes it normal to play a team game alone.
032026
Open-ended characters ask more of the player
A study of 130 players, not yet peer reviewed, found that characters driven by a language model made players feel freer but work harder. They lowered players' trust and the ease of use of the game, with no significant gain in overall experience.
042026
Platforms are writing rules for what a character may be
Epic bans romantic and medical personas and puts talking to AI characters behind a parental control. California's law protects game characters only while they stay on the subject of the game. The rules are being set before the characters are common.
Objections
Counterpoint2026
It has not shipped as a permanent feature anywhere
PUBG Ally was a two-week test, and Krafton says it will refine it before full-scale implementation, with no date. Ubisoft describes its version as an experiment. No company has published how many players used any of these characters. Nvidia cites feedback from over a thousand players, and Ubisoft a few hundred.
Counterpoint2026
A hands-on review found the teammate poor
Paul Kelly of PCGamesN played the PUBG test. His AI partner gave contradictory callouts, failed to warn him of an enemy in her line of sight, and refused to talk about anything off topic.
Counterpoint2025
Players say they do not want it
Quantic Foundry's founder Nick Yee calls so lopsided a negative response rare. The survey was optional and its sample is mostly committed PC and console players, two thirds of them men and nearly half aged 25 to 34. That is not the younger audience of Fortnite.
GamesMarkt, Marcel Kleffmann, on Quantic Foundry (22 December 2025)
What to watch
2026
The first player-made Fortnite islands with talking characters
Late 2026. Epic's tool for characters that talk back, called Conversations, left its experimental stage on 30 July 2026, so creators can now publish islands that use it. These would be the first such characters to reach players outside a short test.
2027
The first reports under California's chatbot law
1 July 2027, when operators of companion chatbots must first report to California under the new law. It will test whether any game character falls outside the exemption for bots that stay on topic.
Further reading
- AnalysisHow KRAFTON Built PUBG Ally, a Co-Playable Character Powered by NVIDIA ACEdeveloper.nvidia.com
- Communityr/gamedev Policy on AI Usereddit.com
- Communitydev stress-tests their game's voice recognition after a player calls it badtiktok.com
Where to follow it VGC and The Verge AI-in-games coverage, Epic's Creator ecosystem announcements, Inworld/ElevenLabs product news, Kotaku (critical coverage)
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