Ubisoft recently announced a fascinating piece of innovative technology which utilizes artificial intelligence and could revolutionize its open-world games, but this new program actually threatens to make the Assassin's Creed series worse rather than better. Since 2007, the historical open-world adventure series has taken players to a variety of time periods and settings, ranging from Ancient Egypt to Victorian London. The Assassin's Creed games have slowly grown bigger and bolder over the last fifteen years, but a major development in AI at Ubisoft may lead the franchise in an unfortunate direction that damages immersion and removes the need for human developers.

Released on a nearly annual basis since 2007, the Assassin's Creed games are known for their detailed historical settings which are packed with an increasing variety of content to discover. The original Assassin's Creed gave players a singular focus, with protagonist Altair tasked with redeeming himself by hunting and slaying key targets spread across the Holy Land during the Third Crusade. Subsequent installments introduced a growing smorgasbord of collectibles to find and side activities to tackle, with modern entries like Assassin's Creed Valhalla serving as full-blown role-playing games complete with character customization and randomized gear to collect.

Ubisoft's AI Ghostwriter Will Change Assassin's Creed

As fans await the arrival of Assassin's Creed Mirage later this year, a recent YouTube video from Ubisoft showcases a potentially disastrous addition to the studio's development toolset. Created by Ubisoft La Forge, the Ubisoft Ghostwriter is an experimental artificial intelligence system capable of quickly and automatically generating dialogue for crowds of non-player characters. Pieces of NPC chatter, also known as "barks", are a common way for Ubisoft to add life and immersion to its open-world titles like Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed. Until now, this NPC chatter has been written by a narrative team to perfectly complement each project's setting.

While a dedicated team of narrative developers are typically responsible for creating barks, Ubisoft Ghostwriter is designed to create a first draft of NPC chatter which narrative teams can then sort through, edit and implement. Ghostwriter also learns from this process, improving its dialogue-generation ability over time. This cuts down on the repetitive work required of narrative teams, which will theoretically give these writers more time to focus on hand-crafting a game's narrative, cutscenes and primary characters. While it remains unclear which projects will utilize this new AI technology, Assassin's Creed Mirage's Baghdad setting could use Ghostwriter to fill its ancient streets with chatter.

Assassin's Creed's Should Turn Away From NPC Chatter

While the Ubisoft Ghostwriter sounds like an interesting tool to aid narrative teams, it fails to strike at the heart of the Assassin's Creed franchise's biggest issues. The series already suffers from an overinflated scale, with each installment attempting to push the envelope further by delivering larger maps with more varied activities. Unfortunately, this emphasis on scale has been a detriment to the series' atmosphere, plot and historical realism. While the franchise's 2014 installment took players to a massive and highly-populated recreation of 1790s Paris, many fans consider AC Unity the worst Assassin's Creed due to the entry's myriad technical issues and disted narrative.

Thanks to the Ubisoft Ghostwriter AI program, the open worlds explored in Assassin's Creed games are likely to become even more generic. Hearing NPCs constantly shout random lines was quaint and nostalgic in early installments, but doubling down on that open-world narrative design will probably feel like a big step back in the modern era. Overhearing casual chatter on the streets of a forgotten city definitely adds to a game's immersive qualities, but procedurally-generated dialogue in a massive AAA title like Assassin's Creed sounds like it could result in sub-par NPC chatter and ultimately breaking immersion rather than enhancing it.

Assassin's Creed Needs To Get Smaller & More Detailed

The Assassin's Creed series has made a name for itself as an extensive saga of big open-world games, but the franchise needs to focus on recapturing a smaller scale with more detailed worlds rather than growing bigger through AI-generated content. While the first Assassin's Creed was quite large back in 2007, compared to more recent installments like Assassin's Creed Valhalla this original title is very small-scale. The first game's narrative was also very tight, with Altair experiencing a clear character arc and his goals remaining very straightforward throughout the story. By falling back on Ghostwriter, Ubisoft risks losing this strict focus.

Instead of building massive open worlds, with NPCs shouting background dialogue that was created by an artificial intelligence, Ubisoft should work on a more constrained experience with a heavy emphasis on narrative and characterization. Ubisoft Ghostwriter has supposedly been created to give narrative designers the freedom to flesh out cutscenes and primary characters, but settling on a smaller-scale Assassin's Creed game would have the exact same effect. If Ubisoft were to tighten the series' focus by delivering a smaller setting and more modest stakes, narrative teams would be able to create both quality NPC chatter and a compelling narrative without relying on Ghostwriter.

With the task of writing NPC chatter being handed off to AI, it also seems like a matter of time before larger game development tasks are also taken from actual human developers and given to computer programs. Ghostwriter may be created with the intent of producing NPC barks, but eventually the task of writing entire cutscenes and character arcs could be handed over to artificial intelligence systems. Other departments, like art and music, could eventually follow suit. This slippery slope may wind up taking opportunities away from talented game developers in favor of artificial intelligence, removing the human element and artistry of game development.

While Ubisoft Ghostwriter will reportedly help narrative teams focus on storylines and primary characters, the artificial intelligence system may ultimately make the Assassin's Creed series worse. Every Assassin's Creed game has featured NPC background barks to some degree, but Ghostwriter could make street chatter feel less hand-crafted and much more generic. Rather than increasing immersion, this overabundance of AI-generated dialogue could take players out of the experience if used inappropriately. So far the series has focused on getting bigger with each installment, but Ubisoft should instead focus on delivering a smaller Assassin's Creed experience with tailor-made content.

Source: Ubisoft/YouTube