Originally Posted by
Xbox News Introducing Muse, a Generative AI Model for Gameplay Ideation
In partnership with Xbox Game Studios’ Ninja Theory, Microsoft Research developed a world and human action model (WHAM) named Muse: a first of its kind generative AI model trained on Ninja Theory’s multiplayer battle arena game, Bleeding Edge. Ninja Theory and Microsoft Research are both based in Cambridge, which made collaboration easy and led to the use of Bleeding Edge for this research.
What’s groundbreaking about Muse is its detailed understanding of the 3D game world, including game physics and how the game reacts to players’ controller actions. This allows the model to create consistent and diverse gameplay rendered by AI, demonstrating a major step toward generative AI models that can empower game creators.
Microsoft Research initially set out to explore how generative AI models can support new experiences, focusing on developing AI capabilities that could allow game developers to ideate and expand upon their work in new ways. To accomplish that, they interviewed 27 global game creators—from indies to AAA game studios—to make sure the research was shaped by the people who would use it. To allow other research teams and game developers to explore the model and experiment with its capabilities, Muse, its model weights, sample data, and interactive interface are now all available on Azure AI Foundry.
What Muse Means for Gaming
Although it’s still early, this model research is pushing the boundaries of what we thought was possible. We are already using Muse to develop a real-time playable AI model trained on other first-party games, and we see potential for this work to one day benefit both players and game creators: from allowing us to revive nostalgic games to faster creative ideation.
Today, countless classic games tied to aging hardware are no longer playable by most people. Thanks to this breakthrough, we are exploring the potential for Muse to take older back catalog games from our studios and optimize them for any device. We believe this could radically change how we preserve and experience classic games in the future and make them accessible to more players.
To imagine that beloved games lost to time and hardware advancement could one day be played on any screen with Xbox is an exciting possibility for us. Another opportunity we are exploring is how Muse can help game teams prototype new gameplay experiences during the creative process and introduce new content—taking games players already love and enabling our developers to inject new experiences for them to enjoy, or even enable you to participate in the creation process.
Xbox’s Approach to Generative AI
Xbox has been innovating with AI and machine learning for decades, including in partnership with Microsoft Research—constantly working to find ways to delight players, and harness new computing capabilities to bring creative visions to life. While AI isn’t new to gaming, we’re now seeing an acceleration of generative AI research, both within Microsoft and across the broader technology community. We believe it’s important to shape how these new generative AI breakthroughs can support our industry and game creation community in a collaborative and responsible way.
For Xbox, game creators will always be the center of our overall AI efforts. We believe there is space for traditional game development and future generative AI technologies that serve as an extension of creative work and offer novel experiences. As part of this, we have empowered creative leaders here at Xbox to decide on the use of generative AI. There isn’t going to be a single solution for every game or project, and the approach will be based on the creative vision and goals of each team.
Reply With Quote