Understanding PlayStation Patents Assist

PlayStation is exploring the possibility of letting an AI take over your game, to help you if you’re stuck. PlayStation Patents Assist

Why PlayStation Patents Assist Matters

Patent documents filed by Sony show plans to offer an in-game “AI Ghost” that can demonstrate how to progress further, or alternatively have your control fully taken over by the AI in order to make progress for you (thanks, Boing Boing).

Intriguingly, Sony suggests the AI could be called upon at any time, trained from past gameplay clips posted on YouTube and Twitch, as well as play data gleaned from PlayStation Network

The idea is that the AI would be able to detect what a player is doing and compare it to past successful examples, then offer solutions

Sony’s patent positions this new generation of AI assistance as superior to previous examples seen in games previously, evoking one unnamed example that sounds similar to Nintendo’s assist features seen in some Mario 2D platformers.

“Some solutions have included the use of a character that a user can follow,” Sony wrote in the patent. “However, the character is usually a graphic image or outlined image of a prior player that played the game and the user must follow the character watching the moves that occurred (including moves and interaction that is not relevant to the user’s current gameplay scenarios).

“This is not, however, very useful for real-time assistance to a player that is encountering some difficulty with a specific scenario of gameplay or along the player’s specific gameplay path

This is because the character does not know specifically what the player is playing or the context of the user’s gameplay

“Further, the character is typically only performing actions of one prior player. Further yet, the character is only presented for general game scenarios that relate to the game, not in relation to the context of the player’s current gameplay.”

Sony has suggested that its AI assistance system will be able to track player progress on a more granular level, so the AI would be able to detect exactly what someone might be looking to achieve at a particular moment.

It’s an intriguing idea, though one which is — for now — just an idea How good can AI get at playing games, or detecting exactly what you need to do to get better

If I’m stuck at a boss in Clair Obscur, will it respec my Verso with a better build Still, it might help me finally beat Bloodborne, which would be nice

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social