Modders are using artificial intelligence to create chatty companions in Skyrim and Stardew

IN Stardew Valley, you can usually only talk to characters a few times a day. This limitation has led to the creation of many mods that give them things to say, allowing players to spend more time with their virtual friends. However, like many games, Stardew has recently turned to artificial intelligence, which resulted in the addition of a mod that allows for theoretically endless conversations with your favorite farm companion.

“The reception was much better than I initially thought [it would be]”, says modder DualityOfSoul. In comments on Nexus Mods, users called it “brilliant” and “one of the best mods released this year.”

To work, the mod connects to the OpenAI API. The implementation is impressive, but constrained in its own way. Each character takes on a similar jovial personality that I associate with the built-in parameters of these gigantic language models. Grumpy camper Linus first tells me bluntly to leave him alone; this is his pre-written dialogue since he hasn’t become friends with me yet. But click again and the OpenAI dialog box appears – three long text boxes displayed one after the other. He calls me his friend and hopes that I have “found peace in the beauty of nature.” Pam then complains that “every day looks the same,” before changing her tune and saying that she hopes “you’re enjoying this season as much as I am.”

Reactions are somewhat character-specific and work better when I’m not talking to grumpy NPCs. But a mod can’t easily escape this basic voice. Stellar it’s largely a fun game, especially once you make friends with everyone, so I can see how it could fit the vibe of some gamers. But this is a noticeable limitation.

This limitation is less present in Herica, an AI companion mod Skyrim. Herika behaves like most people Skyrim companions, following the player and helping in combat and elsewhere. But she will also respond to the conversationboth written and spoken. The LLM can draw from an understanding of the game map, tasks and key functions and have an assigned personality. This means that she can be asked to employ a style other than the standard LLM voice, at least to some extent.

Reece Meakings joined the Herik project after seeing the first version created by his current collaborator, Tylermaister. The two developed the mod from a multi-book summarization tool Skyrim into a full-fledged follower, and we intend to expand it again so that any NPC can become an AI companion.

Nevertheless, Meakings does not believe that artificial intelligence is ready for wider employ in game development. “It won’t work right now,” he says. For starters, there is a cost to employ Herika or Stardew AI. Both employ the OpenAI API, which charges the user a fraction of a cent per line of dialogue generated. From the comments on the Nexus, it seems that this low cost has turned off many players who are used to completely free mods. (Herika offers a free option, but this requires running LLM in your own configuration, which is resource-intensive). On a larger scale, each company will have to deal with the price of connecting to an API or running its own servers, multiplied by each player.

Then there is the open nature of how people interact with the LLM. “It completely changes the way you behave [would] we have to design the game,” says Meakings. Developers would lose linear control over dialogue trees and script triggers, quickly opening up possibilities they hadn’t considered in the narrative or world-building. LLM may be able to lend a hand NPCs keep up, but the rest of the game scripts will have no way to adapt. Moreover, he says, despite the safeguards companies try to put in place, it’s “very easy, if you know what you’re doing,” to get these LLMs to say things that are NSFW, which can cause PR problems for companies that modders don’t have to consider.

Right now, these larger-scale issues mean that Meakings sees the most AI potential in NPCs like Herika, especially in the mod space. There are also NPC AI mods for games like Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077AND Garry’s mod. Capeother Skyrim mod that brings LLM interactions to everyone Skyrim NPC, has 30,000 unique downloads. (Herika has 25,000). All of them have positive reviews – limitations aside, people enjoy playing with AI-generated content.

Meakings’ own interactions with Herika give a clue as to why. In his experience, “you will actually end up having a meaningful conversation with something that isn’t human.” While he understands that Herika is just a program, he is clearly engaged by the fact that he has managed to interact with her on a different level than previous characters. You don’t have to talk to Herika or stick to “ritual” social niceties. You can jump right into the discussion of philosophy and theology Skyrim. In fact, it may be necessary because she may judge your actions.

Gives a specific example. While playing as an Argonian, Meakings heard a rude comment about the lizard-like race from a standard NPC. “AND [said,] Hey, Herika, can you kill him? Please? To me he is a racist.” Herika refused, apparently either for reasons of morality or because they were in a place guarded by guards, which could result in them being put in prison. She then began to walk away, talking about her visit to the catacombs beneath the settlement.

At first Meakings thought it was a mistake. “But then I realized, ‘Oh, I know what she did.’ …She realized, “Oh, Reece is very angry. We can’t kill this person because we’re in the middle of the city – you can’t just kill people. I have to get him out of this situation… what if I lure him to his catacombs for the treasures where we can escape this situation?” She seemed to be trying to diffuse the situation using the tools at her disposal.

This type of experience is not unique to this form of artificial intelligence. Procedurally generated content, creating emergent narratives through a combination of engaging behavior and player-led meaning-making, is well documented. But AI modifications could open up more possibilities in these kinds of moments.

But for this to happen, LLMs need material to work with. Meakings clearly states that Herika would not function without a broader framework Skyrim because most of the way it communicates is based on the writings of the original team. In a scenario where LLMs are used as NPCs in a manufactured video game, they still could not exist without the authors.

The video game performers’ strike raises key questions about how these technologies will handle digital replications of voice actors, something Nexus Mods is approaching cautiously. AI modifications are allowed, but affected creators, including voice actors, may request their removal if they feel that “work is harming them.” (Herika has many voice generation options.)

The implementation of artificial intelligence on the Internet has been rapid and tumultuous, and how it might play out in the gaming industry remains an open question. But thanks to modders, tens of thousands of players are already experimenting with it.