Wide open worlds

Over the next ten years, artificial intelligence looks set to radically transform almost every field you can think of. Astrophysics. Materials science. Medicine and health. Education. Communications. Particle physics. Energy production, storage and transmission. Space exploration. And, um, war.

Entertainment is low on the list of priorities, but of course I'm interested in the possibilities for games, and I'm delighted to see that Sir Demis Hassabis (my former employer at Elixir Studios) is still excited by that stuff too -- and that he's talking about open world games.

The most revolutionary thing about open world games is not the ability to go in any direction or to make persistent changes to the world. As in real life, what we most care about interacting with aren't things but people. Stories are compelling, at their heart, because of character, not because of plot. 

AI opens up a host of new opportunities there. When I'm running a roleplaying game, I conjure up NPCs as needed. Some NPCs turn out to be more than walk-on parts. They can become as important to the story as the player-characters, which means I need to remember their background and goals. I need to keep them as personae that I can slip on at any time. AI can do that. You leave a magic sword at a farm, say. The farmer's lad you regaled with tales of adventure finds the sword. Much later, you might run across him -- now a renowned adventurer in his own right, jealousy guarding that sword that he really hopes you won't ask him to give back.

But the AI can do more than keep track of NPCs and their relationship to you. It can function as the game referee, judging when you need clues to steer you on the right track or when a lull in the action calls for a random encounter. This is what Jamie and I called the "god AI" when we compiled our design wishlist for the Fabled Lands MMO we hoped to develop at Eidos in the late 1990s. It only took thirty years, but now it's finally within our grasp.