Microsoft Launched Quake II Through Generative AI

In February, Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s gaming division, spoke about an unusual application of artificial intelligence in this area: preserving old games regardless of the platform they were launched on. The company’s research in this area has already yielded its first results.

Image source: microsoft.com

One of the heads of the Xbox department, Haiyan Zhan, published a demo of this technology – Quake II was launched in a browser using AI. “AI-generated gameplay – movement, shooting, exploration – and each frame is created on the fly by an AI model of the world, reacting to the player’s actions in real time. The original Quake II level remains a powerful expression of the developers’ vision. This AI opens up new ways to interact with the process and perhaps shows how future tools can empower development teams,” the top manager explained. Anyone can try the technology by visiting the project page.

AI-powered world generation could, in theory, help revive any game, even if it was little known and only launched on platforms that are now unavailable. To do this, you would need to properly train the AI: provide it with the necessary information and, perhaps, show it a certain number of hours of gameplay. After that, the project becomes playable from start to finish. The question arises: what is easier to do: revive the game through AI or involve a development studio to recreate it using traditional methods?