CES 2025 kicked off in Las Vegaslast week and, as always, it is filled with cool, extravagant, and useless tech. Some of my favorites include a pen that automatically transcribes your writing to your smartphone, a Roomba that uses a little arm to pick up socks and move them out of its way, and a spoon that shocks your tongue to make food taste saltier. I know what you’re thinking: how did we ever live without these remarkable innovations?
At the top of the pile of ‘Why did anyone make this’ is PUBG Ally, a new generative AI system from Krafton that aims to bring co-op companions to the next level. Krafton says it is “revolutionizing the battle royale genre with generative AI” with “the world’s first co-playable character designed to play like a human teammate.” Then it showed ussome gameplay of a player and his AI teammate talking to each other like robots.
PUBG Ally: Your New Best Friend
The trailer has the vibe of one of those live demonstrations of a co-op game during an old E3 press conference. For example, duringthe reveal of The Division from E3 2013, they showed a scripted sequence of a trio role-playing like a real squad of post-apocalyptic sleeper agents. It was a lot of “on your six!” and “cover me!” Right at the end one of the guys exclaims, “Brace for PvP!” Cool.
PUBG Ally is like that but even more unnatural. Instead of two friends pretending to be soldiers, it’s just one guy pretending to have a conversation with a bot. It’s actually hard to tell which voice is the human and which one is AI because the guy has adapted the diction and cadence of an AI voice, which is probably a grim little peek into a near future where we’re all just walking around talking with and like AI.
“Hey Ally, I’m looking for a Level 3 vest and 5.56 ammo. Keep your eyes peeled,” the player says, in a way that’s totally just like how you talk to your real friends. “Found a Level 3 vest and ammo nearby, pinged it for you,” your bot responds, in that signature staccato AI voice.
The video goes on, showing all the ways you’re able to interact with your new AI BFF. The bot does things bots can already do, but now it narrates all of its actions to you. “Enemy spotted, I’m covering,” it monotonically announces. The player asks if there’s a vehicle nearby and the bot responds, “Found one, I will come to you.” It’s riveting stuff. The video stops just before the human asks “Hey PUBG Ally, do you think I’m cool?” To which the bot responds, “Yes Adam, you’re my best friend in the whole world.”
Nothing But Fake Friends
The whole idea is just really sad, and I don’t understand what the point of it is. If you don’t want to play PUBG alone, then play with other people. Spend time with your friends or get to know someone in your squad. Have an experience together. What is this creepy AI thing solving for? Loneliness? Talking to a bot is just going to make people feel more lonely.
All of this AI stuff is still in its infancy, so it won’t surprise me if in five years the PUBG Ally is a fully personalized AI buddy that acts like a real person and can play video games with you. Eventually you might even be able to have an entire imaginary friend group that jumps from game to game with you. Maybe in 20 years everyone can have a rich social life filled with fake people. It’s not a future I’d like to live in, but that’s where stuff like PUBG Ally is leading us.
PUBG: Battlegrounds
WHERE TO PLAY
The game that sent the battle royale genre into the stratosphere, PUBG Battlegrounds drops you onto one of several maps with the aim of looting and surviving to the very end. It features plenty of weapons, maps, and vehicles, as well as tense gunplay.
