Clearing the Winter Backlog [Digest] | AI and Games Newsletter 05/02/25
Plus the news, AI-Native games on Steam, 2024 conference talks on YouTube, and a new case study!
Welcome to the AI and Games Digest. The monthly edition of the newsletter where I discuss topics outside of the scope of our regular issues. In addition to our regular announcements and news stories, each issue digs into books, articles, games, and videos that intersect in part, or in full, with the AI and Games remit, plus games I’m playing and answering questions form the community.
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Hello all, and welcome back to the first Digest issue of the
Newsletter for 2025! After a late start to the year - well, I mean, we started in the 2nd week of the year - that means that our first Digest gets pushed into early February. But I figured why not spend this time recounting my gaming over the winter break. Plus of course all the regular stuff you come to expect from this here newsletter.Let’s do this…
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Announcements
A lot of little ones, and some big ones too!
AI and Games #77 - Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2
Our YouTube series is back with the first episode of 2025. Episode 77 takes a look at the inner-workings of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2, as we explore how the game is designed such that enemies react to the player quickly, distribute themselves among all players to ensure everyone is dragged into the fight, and punish those who fail to commit their all to the cause. You can catch the video above, or read the episode here on Substack below.
This is a special episode of
, as it is the first time we’ve made an episode that is based on a talk delivered at our very own AI and Games Conference! And speaking of…AI and Games Conference now live on YouTube
After running our first ever live event in London last November, I’m pleased to announce that recordings from the day are now appearing on our brand new AI and Games Conference YouTube channel!
We’re kicking things off by releasing four talks from across the day:
Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine 2 - The AI Post-Mortem by Vladislav Iantsevich / Saber Interactive
Narrative-Driven Generation: Story to Game World Using LLMs by Rachel Dong / Riot Games
We're Cutting WHAT!?!?! Shipping the AI of Ara: History Untold by Will Chambers / Oxide Games
Harnessing Multi-Agent Systems for Games by Arya Subramanyam and Andrei Muratov / Amazon Web Services
We have over 20 videos to push out to the channel, and we'll be releasing them gradually over the next few weeks as we finalise editing and approval from all our speakers and partners.
Thanks once again to everyone for their excitement for this project, and I’m really happy about how it went down on the day. We’re currently working on finalising the venue for our 2025 event, and I hope to have more information to share in the next month or so.
Plus, updates to AI and Games Conference Socials
On top of the new YouTube channel, we also made some updates to the core conference website, plus we have a new dedicated page on LinkedIn if you’re a busy body on that there social media platform.
Quick Announcements
The developer summit at the 2025 Guildford Games Festival is now sold out! I look forward to catching up with attendees in just over a weeks time.
Did you know I stream games on Twitch and YouTube every week? I’ve been doing a better job since the start of 2025 to jump on a stream each week to chat with the community as I play games, typically on a Wednesday or Thursday night (UK time). So yeah keep an eye out and join in the fun! We started a playthrough of Aliens: Dark Descent just last week.
Game AI Uncovered Vol 3 is on sale now! Use discount code DIS20 for 20% at checkout at the publisher Routledge’s website. You can also buy it on Amazon.
The 2025 AI and Games Summer School early bird tickets are available until March 1st.
In conjunction with this, the 2nd edition of the Artificial Intelligence and Games textbook by Georgios Yannakakis and Julian Togelius (the summer school organisers), complete with a foreword by yours truly, is now available for pre-order with a release date of April 13th.
A reminder that I’m organising meetings for GDC 2025! Hit the button to book in a time slot if you want to meet across the week.
AI (and Games) in the News
Some headlines catching my eye this past week.
AI-Native Games Launching on Steam
As mentioned in my predictions for 2025 newsletter issue, we can expect to see AI-Native games (i.e. games where AI technologies are critical to the core gameplay) begin to emerge more throughout the year, and critically they’ll be coming from indie spaces. And this brings us to two games that are approaching this idea from different directions.
Ai2U: With You ‘Til the End in Early-Access on Steam
Ai2U: With You ‘Til the End - that’s a mouthful - revolves around essentially being trapped inside a house with one of three girls who… really like you, and don’t want you to leave. You then need to figure out how to appease them sufficiently such that you can leave! Very much in the Doki Doki Literature Club corner of ‘psychological horror with anime girls’ gaming. As noted in the AI disclosure on the Steam page, the game art and other assets are made as normal, but the NPC dialogue is powered by a large language model.
I have not tried this game out yet, but if there was interest in having me explore this and other AI-Native games (like last year’s Retail Mage) to discuss their merits and limitations, then let me know. Could make for an interesting newsletter issue or two.
You can find Ai2U on Steam (and it’s got a 10% discount until February 6th).
Millennium Whisper Comes to Steam on Valentine’s Day
Just as I was wrapping up this issue, I had an email from Parable Studios telling me about their title Millennium Whisper which launches in Early-Access on Steam on February 14th. The game is visual novel RPG that takes place at the turn of the millennium, with a high school drama about trying to find a perfect match with fellow classmates. But there’s risk of your behaviour turning into rumours that affect you in both positive and negative ways.
Like Ai2U, the Steam Store disclosure focusses on the use of trained LLMs for the purposes of creating each of the individual characters (i.e. no generative AI used in the art and other assets). However, Parable Studios focus on the fact that their models run locally on device - Ai2U requires an internet connection in the system requirements, suggesting their models run online. In Whisper, each of the characters are running on their own model locally on your device. Plus each model has been curated to give said character some personality -a recurring problem in LLM deployment for in-game characters.
You can wishlist Millennium Whisper now on Steam.
Destiny 2: Heresy Release Affected by SAG-AFTRA Strike
This week sees the release of Destiny 2: Heresy, the next major chapter of Bungie’s beloved live-service shooter. As always this brings with it a ton of new content, with players excited for what is going to be the final chapter of the game’s current narrative the ‘Light and Darkness Saga’, one thing that is going to be missing is a bunch of voice lines.
As detailed in the newsletter last year, SAG-AFTRA’s strikes against video game performance includes acting within many a popular live service title. This has already affected games like Genshin Impact and it looks like it’s having its impact on Destiny 2.As detailed in the official weekly update from Bungie. As pointed out by Orchid, a voice actor on Destiny 2 and co-host of the ‘Guardians of Lore’ podcast (which I should really listen to, because I have no clue what’s going on Destiny most of the time), we’re very much in the same position as before.
One thing that I find most interesting about this is how it’s phrased by Bungie that they have left the pacing in for the voice lines even though they are silent. This implies that should the strike end, that they would be able to plant that info into the game with minimal fuss, given they’ve already done a chunk of the work to put the space into the system for the dialogue to play to begin with. If this proves to be the case, then that’s a smart concession on their part.
Clearing the Winter Backlog
So yeah for this issue of the Digest, I wanted to put some words down on all of the games that I bashed my way through during the winter break and around it. This all comes from the awkward way in which I play video games. I mean sure, I recognise that most people no doubt has a game or two on the go at once, alongside a never-ending backlog. However, I have the added luxury of ‘games I play for work’. But given I don’t play them to review them like a typical games journalist, it can mean I’m playing through several at once in an effort to capture footage for upcoming videos. Then, outside of all that, I am also just trying to play games.
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