Copilot labs show off new, playable Quake II levels

Amid Ai fears in the gaming industry, replete with layoffs and questions about artistry in the age of AI, Microsofts Copilot labs has offered a glimpse into what the future of gaming might look like.

They spent only just over a week on training to produce a real time game model of Quake II, says Tom’s Hardware, that now plays a somewhat choppy 10 frames per second or so version of the game — with new, never before seen gameplay, generated on the fly.

Playing the ai model, not the game
You can interact with the game in real time here, and there are complete controls for viewpoints, movements and even shooting.

The game you are playing is actually rendered live by the AI at 640 x 360 resolution, and it shows how Ai one day might become a strong feature of game development, perhaps running on some future Wham model from Copilot labs.

This is just a technology preview, however, and comes with an important caveat:

«Research exploration,» for now
— We do not intend for this to fully replicate the actual experience of playing the original Quake II game, Copilot Labs say in their blog post, — This is intended to be a research exploration of what we are able to build using current ML approaches. Think of this as playing the model as opposed to playing the game.

They go on to say that:

— … future models could be improved, enabling new kinds of interactive experiences and empowering game creators to bring to life the stories they wish to tell.

You can give the game a run here.

Read more: Copilot Lab’s blog post, Tom’s Hardware, Slashdot and The Verve.