Collaborative Quest Completion with LLM-driven Non-Player Characters in Minecraft

2024 Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics |

Publication

The use of generative AI in video game development is on the rise, and as the conversational and other capabilities of large language models continue to improve, we expect LLM-driven non-player characters (NPCs) to become widely deployed. In this paper, we seek to understand how human players collaborate with LLM-driven NPCs to accomplish in-game goals. We design a minigame within Minecraft where a player works with two GPT4-driven NPCs to complete a quest. We perform a user study in which 28 Minecraft players play this minigame and share their feedback. On analyzing the game logs and recordings, we find that several patterns of collaborative behavior emerge from the NPCs and the human players. We also report on the current limitations of language-only models that do not have rich game-state or visual understanding. We believe that this preliminary study and analysis will inform future game developers on how to better exploit these rapidly improving generative AI models for collaborative roles in games.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 16

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 20

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 24

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 26

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 27

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 5

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 8

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 11

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 13

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.

Minecraft Collaborative Quest Completion Study: User 14

This video is a screen recording of a user playing Minecraft and collaborating with two LLM-driven non-player characters to complete a quest.