PUBG: Battlegrounds is giving players an AI-powered in-game companion

Going solo in PUBG: Battlegrounds has always felt harrowing, whether you’re playing with strangers or literally indulging in ‘Solo’ mode. Not only are you trying to survive in a map where literally everyone is out to get you, you’re also without the cozy comfort of any teammates to watch your back. However, the game will soon use AI to fix that.

Krafton, the publishing company behind the game series, took the stage at CES 2025 to debut what it calls Co-Playable Characters (CPCs). These companions will be powered by language models and will be able to converse with players in-game.

The abilities will include having real-time conversations with players around what is happening in a match. The CPCs will also be able to adapt their strategies and gameplay to work with a player’s unique gameplay style and give advice on how to progress.

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This should go a long way in helping those new to the game and to the battle royale genre in general.

How this will work

The CPCs in PUBG: Battlegrounds will be powered by small language models and the Nvidia ACE generative AI. An acronym for Avatar Cloud Engine, the ACE generative AI was introduced back in 2023, and is a tool that allows players to speak to NPCs or non-playable characters in a game.

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While the tech has appeared in a couple of games since, its larger potential is yet to be explored. With the perks of modern gaming hardware, including GPUs that can compute much more AI workloads today, the tech is expected to get more powerful with time, and may soon change how we interact with characters in all kinds of games.

Don’t hold your breath for CPCs on PUBG Mobile/ BGMI

While it isn’t clear when Krafton will employ its CPCs for PUBG: Battlegrounds, it has made no such comments about the mobile version of the PC game – PUBG Mobile (BGMI in India). The tech will likely rely partially on local hardware, and the ability to process AI workloads on our mobile devices today may not be on the same level just yet.

For those who do have a gaming laptop or desktop, PUBG: Battlegrounds is available as a freemium game, and can be downloaded and installed from the Steam client for Windows.