Lately, there’s been a lot of hype around AI-powered NPCs, with claims like “We’re finally going to have dynamic characters that can respond to anything and hold deep conversations!”

But here’s the problem: NPCs were never the issue.

An NPC is that background character chopping wood, who, when you talk to him, simply says “I’m chopping wood.” Does it change anything if he suddenly starts telling you about his life? No. Nobody cares.

The real challenge isn’t about making background characters more talkative; it’s about deepening interactions with meaningful characters—the ones who influence the game and shape the player’s experience. Sid Meier put it best: “A game is a series of meaningful choices.” The point of a game isn’t random chatter, but interactions that have consequences and impact.

What AI Can Actually Bring to Games

Where LLMs truly add value isn’t in making NPCs more verbose, but in managing the combinatorial explosion of dialogue and relationships with recurring Secondary Characters.

In a typical RPG, a narrative designer must manually script every possible response for a character, taking into account the player’s past choices. This quickly becomes unsustainable if the character is meant to evolve over multiple interactions.

But with AI maintaining a global state and remembering player actions, characters can react in a way that feels dynamic and personal, rather than just following a pre-written script.

A Paradigm Shift in Game Design

Most games avoid complex relationships between characters by constantly moving players from one location to another—jumping from quest to quest without much depth. But AI could finally enable characters who remember us and evolve over time, making relationships in games feel truly alive.

I recently spoke with teams working on AI-powered characters, and I told them:

“You’re not making smarter NPCs. You’re creating Secondary Characters. That’s where the real innovation is.”

➡️ What do you think? Should AI be used to make NPCs more chatty, or should it focus on deepening relationships with key characters?