NCSOFT shows off upcoming game “Project M” with new trailer
During GDC, NCSOFT (Guild Wars 2, Blade & Soul) has shown off its upcoming gaming known as Project M via a new trailer. This is all part of unveiling a “digital human”, as in the trailer “a digital human version of NCSOFT’s chief creative officer (CCO), Taekjin Kim, appeared on screen and guided the viewers through Project M’s world and core gameplay”.
It sounds weird, right? Well NCSOFT say that the digital human made for the Project M reveal was “developed utilizing NCSOFT’s own AI technology combined with its advanced art and graphics technological capabilities. The digital human’s speech voice in the trailer was generated from the company’s AI text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis technology. It is used to translate text information into natural human speech reflecting a certain person’s voice, speech accent, and emotions”.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
The digital version of Kim explains that “Project M is one of NCSOFT’s most ambitious projects to date”, before picking up a controller and activating a purple cube of some kind. He then introduces himself and, well, look, hopefully you’ve watched the video above, because he then starts talking about “physical reality” and particles.
There’s clearly some gameplay shown, as there’s three options that appear on screen offering to select “Fistfight”, or “Stand down”, while “Use gun” is greyed out, presumably because whatever is happening in the game, the character doesn’t have a gun. It looks like a very impressive game, visually, with talk of choices mattering, and shaping your story.
Songyee Yoon, CSO of NCSOFT, said, “Project M is our latest innovation, harnessing the power of cutting-edge AI and graphics technology to an unprecedented level.” She added, “With the help of Unreal Engine, we have achieved our vision for Project M with seamless integration of our foundational AI technology, resulting in breathtaking detail.”
“We are excited to see how NCSOFT is pushing Unreal Engine 5 for Project M, and the high-fidelity digital humans they have created is truly impressive,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Epic Games.
That’s about all we have, and little is still known about Project M aside it being an action-adventure title that’s coming to consoles, but it seems one to keep an eye on, for sure.
