Krafton has partnered with Nvidia to roll out a new mode in the battle royale game PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS that lets players team up with an artificial intelligence (AI) companion. The plan is to implement an AI teammate that communicates with players by voice and fights alongside them. However, there is feedback that the AI character's combat ability falls short of expectations, and that the mode is not easy to use due to high recommended specs and PC cafe settings issues.
According to the game industry on the 18th, Krafton launched a beta of a new mode called Ally Duo that applies the AI technology PUBG Ally to the Battlegrounds Arcade on the 17th. In this mode, users can team up with an AI companion named Ella to enjoy the game.
◇ Implemented on Nvidia ACE technology
According to Krafton, Ella is not a simple bot but a character based on AI technology that plays with users (CPC, or co-playable character). Going beyond the level of existing bots or NPCs that only react to preset conditions, it is designed to understand users' voice commands and in-game situations and to independently decide on necessary actions such as moving, collecting items, and responding in combat.
Nvidia's game AI technology ACE was used in designing Ella. ACE helps game characters understand what users say and generate context-appropriate actions and responses. Krafton first unveiled the CPC technology co-developed with Nvidia at CES 2025, an IT exhibition held in Las Vegas in January last year, and applied the technology to the life simulation game Injoy introduced in March of the same year.
However, while AI in Injoy was primarily used to make NPCs' speech and behavior natural, in Ally Duo the AI takes on the role of a teammate deployed to the battlefield with the user. Players can instruct Ella via microphone to follow them or share enemy positions during engagements. Ella also verbally reports her location, actions, and health status. As an AI that participates in actual play rather than a simple conversational character, users were focused on Ella's completeness even before the service began.
◇ Passing marks for communication, combat still unfinished
Since the beta test began, user evaluations of Ella's game understanding have been largely positive. Reactions said Ella shows a human-like level in understanding basic rules such as joining the user, sharing items, and avoiding the blue zone. Many also said basic voice-based communication works without issues.
But the limitations were clear in actual play. Awkward moments appeared in basic movement and interactions, such as Ella failing to open doors or getting stuck in terrain, and there were continued criticisms that her aiming and other combat responses were unpolished. Some said movement was not smooth even in situations that human users could handle easily, and that for smooth gameplay it was better to give up collaborating with Ella and play solo.
There were also issues stemming from Ally Duo adopting an on-device approach. Because on-device processing runs AI on the user's PC rather than on a server, it requires higher PC performance than the regular mode. While the recommended specs for the regular Battlegrounds mode can be met with a GeForce GTX 1060-class graphics card released in 2016, the recommended specs for Ally Duo are a GeForce RTX 4070-class card released in 2023. By representative benchmark metrics, the RTX 4070 offers about 2.7 times the graphics performance of the GTX 1060 3GB, and graphics memory increases fourfold from 3GB to 12GB.
Some users also reported cases where the game did not run properly or the program force-closed despite meeting the minimum specs. And because Ally Duo is a beta service designed on Nvidia technology, it is only available on PCs equipped with Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics processing units (GPUs). PCs using AMD GPUs cannot use this mode at present.
These issues also inconvenienced users at PC cafes. To run Ally Duo, you must turn on Windows' Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling and restart the PC. However, the three PC cafes the reporter visited all had this feature turned off. Even after enabling the feature and rebooting, the setting reset due to PC cafe system characteristics and turned off again, and ultimately Ally Duo could not be run at all three locations.
◇ "We will improve technical completeness through feedback"
Even so, the industry views the very release of Krafton's Ally Duo mode as a meaningful attempt. The assessment is that it greatly expands AI's scope of use by applying an AI companion to a game like Battlegrounds that involves real-time decision-making and many combat variables. Krafton also said this beta service is intended to check a wide range of feedback in real user environments and use it to improve technical completeness.
A Krafton official said, "Nothing has been specifically finalized yet regarding additional modes or services using Ella or a full release schedule, and we will review them based on user experiences and feedback confirmed during the beta period and provide guidance later."