Playable Worlds, Raph Koster’s multiverse game studio, is partnering with Didmo to use their Popul8 AI-powered character creation platform in their future games.
Popul8 is a solution that lets developers streamline, edit, and generate characters that match the game’s core style at a quick pace. Framed as letting a team’s artists focus on creating “premium” characters and lifting some of the grunt work, as well as making editing and smaller changes faster and easier, which also brings down production costs. Using this technology could also make more distinct, diverse NPCs and background characters in a short time, tailoring them to environments as necessary, and otherwise filling up a game’s world. This could add to immersion in ways that aren’t repetitive (we’ve all likely run into identical looking NPCs at times).
In a press release announcing the deal, Raph Koster says “We are delighted that Popul8 has such flexible character customization that helps our character artists deliver their magic faster. This will help every player find a way to express who they want to be. Our goal is to enable players to create the full range of unique virtual identities a modern MMO requires.”
This plays right into what Playable Worlds is working on, “a massively multiplayer game set in the most alive world ever” and thus, having a technological solution to fill that world does make sense. The newly announced deal with Didimo is the latest in the growing use of AI-powered technology in development. In many cases, teams are announcing their tech to work to support their development team, which is the case here.
Things are clearly moving along for Playable Worlds with this new deal, so we’ll just have to wait and see when they’re ready to reveal more.
