See Arena Breakout: Infinite's First Ever FPS AI Companion In Action In A Full F.A.C.U.L. Match

I remember playing SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals for the first time with my "AI" teammates on the PlayStation 2. Putting on the headset and giving NPCs commands and seeing them execute was pretty wild. Sure, you were very limited on the commands and sometimes the microphone's recognition of those commands was spotty, but did you just see them take cover when I said take cover?!

Boy have times changed. Arena Breakout: Infinite is showing off a version of the same type of gameplay now in 2024...except boy have things advanced. In what More Fun Studios calls the "First Ever AI Companion Who Understands Human Language" or F.A.C.U.L. (what a dumb name), the upcoming shooter is showing how voice commands can once again lead a squad to victory.

This time around, the team won't be limited to a dozen or so dedicated commands.

The new video is actually pretty interesting to watch. Using normal language, the "player" commands their 3 AI teammates to perform actions like flanking, covering, examining, and more and all of it is done in everyday speech. Seeing the player tell the NPCs to "examine the blue box" and seeing them run to that box with multiple colored boxes on the scene makes me curious how far the tech could actually go.

That said, the team has admitted that they haven't found a real use case scenario to add this to the game yet, but it's one hell of an interesting tech demo. Check it out below.