While Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick's recent appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box went viral for his thoughts on PC gaming, elsewhere in the same interview, Zelnick also hinted at an interesting feature coming to future Take-Two titles. He revealed seeing AI as a tool that could help Rockstar Games and other video game developers create game characters capable of having natural, unscripted conversations with players.
Zelnick explained that characters could be trained on scripts written by talented writers, then use that foundation to create responses that feel more natural and spontaneous. Instead of picking from a list of three dialogue options, you might actually have a real conversation with that shopkeeper who looks a lot like someone else in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in Grand Theft Auto 6. With GTA 6 officially one year away from launch, many are wondering if this could be implemented in the upcoming sequel.
Companies like NVIDIA and Inworld AI are already demonstrating this technology. Their systems allow game characters to understand context and respond to natural speech based on what they should logically know about the game world. However, not everyone is a fan of using AI in gaming - with good reason. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 faced backlash when players discovered what they called AI-generated assets in the game. ARC Raiders drew criticism for using artificial intelligence to voice some of its characters.
