Skyrim has a lot of NPCs that players can interact with, and a clever mod has made use of AI to give them memories and more dynamic conversations. Typically, once a NPC's dialogue options have been exhausted there is nothing more to be gained from interacting with them, and players have criticized Skyrim for its seemingly small pool of voice actors since many NPCs draw from the same pool of stock dialogue. Some Skyrim mods add new dialogue to help alleviate this issue.
One example of the repetitive NPC dialogue is the many guards found around Skyrim who all complain of their cousins being out fighting dragons while they are stuck with guard duty. Many players turn to mods to spice the game up or make it somewhat more immersive, sometimes achieving unexpected results. One Skyrim player inadvertently made the guards sound like minions after adding a bunch of mods to their game, much to their disappointment.
A Skyrim player is working on a mod that allows players to talk to NPCs and have dynamic conversations. The Reddit user known as Art_from_the_Machine explained that they are using Whisper, a speech to text AI, to use the player's speech to prompt ChatGPT. ChatGPT essentially role-plays as the NPC based on background information about the character that has been fed to the language model. The NPC uses the ChatGPT-generated response and is voiced by xVASynth, a speech synthesis software. Art_from_the_Machine also explained that ChatGPT is asked to summarize conversations to serve as the NPC's memory.
The idea of a game filled with NPCs that can react and interact dynamically is an exciting one, and it is almost unsurprising that someone from the Skyrim modding community looks set to be the first to achieve this. It's likely only a matter of time before game developers start implementing things like generative AI and voice synthesis in their games to create more unique and immersive experiences. Meanwhile, modders continue to add value to Skyrim by adding new content and improving the visuals. Several mods have even ascended to the game proper; the survival mod that was added to Skyrim Anniversary Edition for example.
While it's true that some Skyrim mods can be downright bizarre, the modding community is likely one of the most innovative in all of gaming. Using various AI technologies to give NPCs the ability to converse and remember previous conversations is an impressive feat, so mod enthusiasts should definitely keep an eye on the work of Art_from_the_Machine as they continue development.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - Anniversary Edition is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.