Narrative Graph: Co-developing AI tools for game devs with Xbox
37Earlier this year, we announced a co-development partnership with Xbox to build multi-platform AI tools to assist creators in dialogue, story, and quest design. We’re now calling this collaboration Project Explora and we'll be giving developers an early look at the tools we’re building during our GDC session. Here's an overview for those of you who can't join us in person.
Interactive narratives are complex to manage, involving non-linear plots, branching dependencies, and a wealth of choices for players. Co-developed with Xbox, Narrative Graph is a tool that assists developers in creating dynamic narratives that adapt to player choices, fostering deeper engagement.
With Narrative Graph, you can upload any source materials – such as outlines or scripts – and generate a graph with branching narratives that allows you to visualize the structure of your story. You can also use AI to generate ideas for new story beats or dialogue based on what works best in your game. Narrative Graph can also parse out character profiles and world lore from your source materials, giving you a comprehensive tool to manage narrative elements.
To illustrate one application of Narrative Graph, we created a basic prototype called Mists of Aurora. The prototype takes players through three scenes of a text-based narrative game inspired by tabletop RPGs. The addition of an AI-powered narrator and mechanics means that every playthrough is different – with Narrative Graph ensuring that the overarching story remains cohesive and engaging.
Narrative Graph enables player-centric narratives and gameplay, while making it easy to holistically visualize story elements, iterate quickly, and produce content. We’re continuing to work with and learn from developers in private preview, and will be releasing the tool later this year.