Sony Patents AI 'Ghost' Player Tech To Assist Users In Complex Game Scenarios

Sony has been granted a patent for an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated "Ghost Player" designed to assist PlayStation users when they are stuck in a game. As per the documents submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an AI-controlled character will appear on-screen and demonstrate how to progress further in the game or completely take over from the user and complete the mission.

The new AI help system is being touted as an evolution of the existing PS5 Game Help feature, which currently relies on static text or pre-recorded videos. According to a report in IGN, the AI has been trained from past gameplays, clips posted on YouTube and Twitch, as well as play data gleaned from PlayStation Network.

Sony claims that although video game technology has seen many advances in recent years, some players find themselves in need of assistance as games become increasingly complex. Players who are not experts end up quit playing the game or find it hard to complete the tasks. Though some can research the game or look up gameplay, the process is time-consuming.

"Implementations of the present disclosure include methods, systems, and devices for providing ghost assistance to a player during gameplay of the game session, whereby the game assistance is intelligently provided by a ghost character based on control input learned by an AI model of the gameplay," Sony wrote in the patent.

"The ghost character can therefore be controlled by the assistance Al engine during gameplay and provide the player with visual illustrations of how certain game scenarios are played in order for the character controlled by the player to be able to achieve progress in the game," it added.

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Customise The Ghost

The gamers would be able to customise this AI ghost character, which could simply be a shadow, a fully animated character, a user-generated character or a figure from another game. Sony even cited an example of Yoda from Star Wars as an AI ghost character.

"The ghost character can be an animated representation of all-knowing Yoda from Star Wars. Yoda can provide not just interactive moves to show how to play specific scenarios of the game, but can also provide verbal communication to the player."

Sony claimed its "Ghost mode" would track player progress in greater detail than prior in-game help modes and provide customised solutions.