talking

Epic just gave Fortnite creators the same AI tech that powered Darth Vader’s controversial debut.

When Fortnite’s Darth Vader started talking, things went downhill fast. The AI-powered NPC voiced with permission from James Earl Jones’ estate, cursed, glitched, and set off alarms. Union actors cried foul. SAG-AFTRA filed a complaint. And suddenly, Epic was at the center of a digital rights battle.

However, during the State of Unreal showcase, Epic had a different narrative, claiming the Darth Vader AI NPC is an example of Fortnite and Disney “responsibly embracing emerging technologies.”

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So now they’re letting players do it too.

Fortnite will let you create your own AI NPC

During the showcase, Epic dropped the mic: the AI tools behind Vader will soon be in players’ hands.

A live demo showed how creators can build their own AI-powered characters with personalities, voices, responses, and even game-changing behaviors using a device called “Persona” in UEFN (Unreal Editor for Fortnite).

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The star of the demo is an AI-powered NPC, Mr. Buttons, a cosmic weirdo who is clearly based off of Portal’s Wheatley. His one goal was to convince players to press a glowing red button.

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“What brings you to this spectacular catwalk, my friend?” Mr. Buttons asked, oozing surreal charm.

The player hesitated. “What does the button do?”

“A gateway to glory… a symphony of – well, you get the idea,” replied Buttons, dodging the question.

It wasn’t scripted. The conversation ran live, powered by a large language model generating unscripted, reactive dialogue in real-time. Just 20 lines built Mr. Buttons.

The AI didn’t just talk, it changed gameplay too. Pressing the button triggered a cascade of effects designed by the creator. And it wasn’t all chaos.

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Epic emphasized that devs can tightly control NPC personality, tone, and story direction through editable “facts” and prompts in code.

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They pitched it as storytelling evolution. “As game developers, our job is to entertain players, and AI is ultimately a tool to make games more fun and immersive,” they said during the demo. “It enables infinite possibilities for two-way dialogue, just like we saw with Darth Vader.”

In Fortnite’s future, the lines between player and playwright are gone. And your NPC might just insult you, then beg you to blow up the map.

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Remember all that whinging from internet weirdos when Ciri was revealed as The Witcher 4’s protagonist late last year? Well, having come out in support of the move at the time, Geralt’s voice actor has now doubled down in even more emphatic fashion, suggesting that you’re a fool if you think it was a “woke” thing to do.

Doug Cockle did so in a video for Fall Damage which saw him react to some Witcher memes. Seriously, at one point he explains that he understands what the distracted boyfriend is, but doesn’t reckon it accurately reflects big Gerry’s love triangle with Yenny from the block and the ginger one.

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Confronted with a post about people spamming “woke” when TW4’s trailer rocked up at last year’s Game Awards being “everything that is wrong with gaming culture”, the actor didn’t mince words.

“I wouldn’t say that’s everything that’s wrong with gaming culture, but I do think that’s just stupid,” he said, “It’s not woke. There’s nothing woke about it. It’s a cool character from The Witcher, and they’re gonna focus on that character, and that’s awesome.

“We can’t just have Geralt for every single game for The Witcher ad nauseam, out through eternity. Besides, we’ve seen the end of Geralt’s journey. Blood and Wine was supposed to wrap up Geralt’s journey. I celebrate Ciri. I celebrate her being the protagonist.” He then blew a raspberry at folks who still think it’s “woke”, whatever that word means aside from a thing I don’t like because it might be a tiny bit diverse.

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If you do still think it’s woke, the start of the video might help you. It sees Cockle advise us all to be a bit like Geralt and gather up the confidence enough to talk to girls – or whoever you might be interested in – because “they probably don’t bite”. Well, as the actor admitted, “unless you ask them to, probably”.

Later on in the video, Cockle also encounters one of those ‘I bet he’s thinking about other girls’ menes, and goes on to suggest that Geralt isn’t a distracted boyfriend, reasoning: “I think he’s pretty focused on the present. I think when Geralt’s with Yen, he’s thinking about Yen, and when he’s with Triss, he’s thinking about Triss.”

Yes, this is all as surreal to hear said in Geralt’s voice as you might think having just read it in text form.

For more Witcher-related news, you can check out some of its devs reminiscing as TW3 turned 10 the other day, or this mod that has a go at giving that game a Witcher 1-style skill system.

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Fortnite gives players Darth Vader AI tech to build talking NPCs

Fortnite will let you create your own AI NPC

The Witcher 4 being about Ciri isn’t “woke” and all the fuss is “stupid” Geralt himself says, fittingly in a video where he offers advice about talking to girls