Best AI Tools for Game Development
You have probably heard about (or may use) tools for coding, which help developers code 10 times faster.
Well, there are also special AI tools for game developers that help them create games faster.
There are quite a few different use cases here, from the automatic creation of environments and character development to improving the actual gameplay.
With gaming being such a large (and profitable) industry, chances are we are seeing just the first wave of AI startups in this space. So far, we have identified a few cool tools, including:
Promethean AI
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Makes game development much, much easier
- Generate game environments with text prompts
- Supports a wide range of environment types
- It takes some time to truly master it
Promethean AI is one of the best tools for game environment creation. It uses AI to automate the process of building 3D environments, thus enabling game developers to construct rich, detailed worlds with ease.
Its standout feature of Promethean AI is the ability to generate a variety of environments based on simple descriptions. Instead of doing it the old way and spending hours, if not days, creating an environment, this tool does it all for you. And the best part is that it supports a wide range of environment types.
So, whether you need a lush forest or a futuristic city, Promethean AI can create such an environment for you — significantly accelerating the game development process.
And unsurprisingly, it has found quite a following among game developers all around the world — all of whom prefer to ship their games faster to the market. At the end of the day, that’s what AI is all about – smart automation.
Scenario
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- A truly time-saving tool for game developers
- Lets them create their own AI for in-game characters
- Can sing along Unity or be integrated directly in the game
- It is a tool made for professionals (not a bug, though)
Scenario is an online tool that allows users to craft unique and style-consistent game assets with custom-trained AI models.
As such, this isn’t the tool for an average user, myself included. Instead, it’s meant for game developers who could use it to give their studios “AI superpowers.”
These “superpowers” enable them to train and deploy custom-trained models that are style-consistent, fully controllable, and integrated into their workflow. As a result, game developers get to shatter development time and streamline their workflow.
Once these assets are created, game developers can integrate them with the Scenario GenAI Engine API — which works with game engines like Unity or can be integrated directly with the games themselves.
Obviously, this isn’t a free service, but Scenario does offer a free trial so that you (presuming you’re a game developer) can test it out before spending a dime of your hard-earned money.
Ludo
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Smart, AI-powered gameplay adaptation
- Personalized gameplay experiences
- Player behavior analysis
- Third-party integrations are only available with the more expensive Studio plan
Ludo.ai is a tool that is used to create engaging gameplay experiences.
It relies on AI to analyze player behavior and adapt the gameplay accordingly — providing a personalized and more engaging experience for each player. And that’s its key feature to analyze every player’s unique play style, skill level, and other preferences to improve the game.
On the other hand, it collects information about every player and can deliver valuable insights into their behavior — helping game developers and publishers understand their players better and improve their games.
Furthermore, Ludo includes the amazing text-to-video tool that allows developers to generate gameplay videos from text prompts, as well as to take existing video footage or stills and use it as a basis to experiment with how AI can augment the video. Pretty cool!
Finally, it includes a game ideation service that lets users generate game concepts, develop engaging elements, and create captivating visuals.
Leonardo.Ai
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- The quality of art generated is stunning
- Create amazing assets in minutes, not months
- For truly unique results, you can train your own model
- All those features and customizations can be overwhelming
Leonardo.Ai is a platform that helps artists create stunning game assets with the help of AI. With market-leading features, the tool aims to give artists greater control over their creations — allowing them to craft entire worlds in mere minutes rather than months.
In other words, with Leonardo.Ai – you can create production-ready assets from pre-trained AI models or even train your own AI models.
Training your own AI models may sound complicated, but that is not the case here. Quite the contrary, Leonardo.Ai makes this process as simple as a few clicks, after which you can generate thousands of variations and deviations from your training data. Or, to put it differently, you can iterate until you’re satisfied with the results. And the best part is that all this happens quickly.
Leonardo.Ai showcases a variety of potential creations, highlighting all the cool things the AI can bring to art and design. From landscapes to objects to characters, the possibilities are endless.
You start by selecting what you want to create. Then, you can create models of various items from your existing work or use art from mood boards or references. Mentioned variations can be created using simple text prompts. The process is iterative, enabling upscaling and refinement.
All in all, Leonardo.Ai is a powerful tool for artists, especially those working on game assets. So whether you’re creating items, environments, helmets, buildings, or concept art – Leonardo.Ai can help you, bringing the future of art and design to your fingertips.
Charisma by Charisma Entertainment
👍 Pros
👎 Cons
- Makes it easy to increase the quality and depth of virtual beings
- Sings along all popular development platforms
- Adds emotion and memory to virtual characters
- It's a professional tool mostly used by video game makers
Charisma has developed an easy-to-use, award-winning platform to create believable and lifelike characters.
Unlike chatbots, Charisma uses the language of storytelling, with built-in features such as emotion, memory, scenes and subplots. As such, Charisma likes to say that it is powering digital humans for entertainment, education and metaverses — bringing characters to life so that audiences can talk to them using AI voices, emotion, memory and storytelling.
Charisma projects can be connected to Unreal Engine, Unity, mobile and metaverses — offering real-time analytics for immediate feedback and “dynamic storytelling.”
Charisma is used by some of the world’s biggest companies, including Warner Bros, Sky, DreamWorks, PlayStation, and BBC, to name a few.
How can AI tools help game development?
Like that’s the case with other sectors, AI can streamline and automate many things – effectively helping developers launch their games faster to the market. Here are some of the features these tools bring to the table:
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Environment generation
There are AI tools that can generate game environments from simple text prompts. This effectively turns what is otherwise a multi-day process into something that is completed within a few minutes. Or at least you can get the first draft of a new environment in a few minutes.
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Better characters
AI also helps with game character development. There are tools that let you quickly create characters, as well as those that make them smarter. These are AI-powered tools, and the characters they help create are also (obviously) smarter.
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Smarter gameplay
AI can also help make smarter gameplay. The algorithm can analyze the player’s behavior and adapt the gameplay accordingly. As a result, players get a personalized and more engaging gaming experience.
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Coding support
AI can also help with the actual coding of the game. Whichever programming language you’re using to write your game, it is almost certainly supported by one of the AI tools for coding. These tools can help with code completion, generate entire functions from text prompts, and more.
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Pre-built engines and templates
Finally, we should add that many of the AI tools for game development integrate popular gaming engines, allowing developers to use them with a few lines of code. Or rely on an engine for specific purposes in their development process. In addition, many provide templates that further streamline game development.
As you can see, AI can add a lot to game development – helping developers do their work faster and ship more often. In fact, we would think that these tools are so good that, soon enough, every game developer will use them. Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.