Xbox has today announced Muse, "a generative AI model for gameplay ideation" that opens the door for better video game preservation.
Microsoft Research and Xbox Games Studio, Ninja Theory - developer of the Hellblade series, have created "a first of its kind generative AI model trained on Ninja Theory's multiplayer battle arena game, Bleeding Edge.". The World and Human Action Model (WHAM) is a generative AI model of a video game that can generate game visuals, controller actions, or both.
In an Xbox Wire blog post, Fatima Kardar – Corporate Vice President, Gaming AI outlines what Muse is and what it could mean for game preservation and ensuring games have longer lives across more generation: "Today, countless classic games tied to aging hardware are no longer playable by most people. Thanks to this breakthrough, we are exploring the potential for Muse to take older back catalog games from our studios and optimize them for any device."
"To imagine that beloved games lost to time and hardware advancement could one day be played on any screen with Xbox is an exciting possibility for us. Another opportunity we are exploring is how Muse can help game teams prototype new gameplay experiences during the creative process and introduce new content"”taking games players already love and enabling our developers to inject new experiences for them to enjoy, or even enable you to participate in the creation process."
Leading The Way In Preservation
Xbox have long been advocates for the preservation of older titles, launching the successful backwards compatibility programme for Xbox 360 titles to play on Xbox One. Later, these titles became enhanced for Xbox One X and eventually received FPS boosts on Xbox Series consoles.
It seems that we're only a matter of time away from the first AI generated video game. AI is playing a key part in video game development job redundancies and generative AI content is finding its way in to even the biggest of series out there - see Call of Duty’s six finger zombie loading screen. The Xbox Wire seems to address this concern with the following statement: "For Xbox, game creators will always be the center of our overall AI efforts. We believe there is space for traditional game development and future generative AI technologies".
For those looking for a more detailed explanation to the technical side of Muse, we recommend reading the blog post on Microsoft Research. Phil Spencer also joined a Dom Matthews from Ninja Theory and Katja Hofmann from Microsoft Research in a YouTube video to discuss Muse. Xbox intend to announce more regarding their approach to AI's involvement with video game development later this year.
Would you pay full price for an AI generated game? Are you excited or worried about the impact AI will have on game development? Let us know in the comments!
