In many games, NPCs are a common and often crucial element in stories, delivering special items or explaining what is going on. There are times, however, when the NPCs take second or third place priority-wise, just so that the cities are not empty, but these, in particular, are not usually the brightest. On more than one occasion, you’re likely to encounter a low-ranking guard with a terrible aim, or even worse: they attack a wall. Or, in games with other categories, they only stay still and say one or two lines of dialogue. To make inZoi NPCs feel more natural, like talking or interacting with another person, KRAFTON and NVIDIA created Smart Zoi.
Compared to The Sims 4, citizens often just walk by, and their reactions are minimal, at least if they are not from your household. When you leave your house, you don’t see many Sims around the city, but they are only in one area. A video from NVIDIA announced the collaboration with inZoi that resulted in Smart Zoi, an improved AI to make NPCs feel and sound more alive. From this same video, we can see that the NPCs with this AI have more interactions that they call “Co-Player Characters.” The free will of these avatars is much higher, so it feels more like the Free Guy movie.
That’s not all. Smart Zoi analyzes each avatar’s actions and experiences and modifies their behavior, so much so that they acquire certain behaviors. The video describes them as personalized NPCs, with each one having their own distinct personalities, tastes, and hobbies. You don’t need a manual command or an action that takes so long to start because Smart Zoi characters choose what to do next — of their own volition. If these mechanics in inZoi are anything like the demo, the overall experience will feel a lot more human.
