Forget NPCs, now we have CPCs Co-Playable Characters or AI teammates in PUBG courtesy of Nvidia ACE tech, but I'm not impressed so far

Date:
Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:26:40 +0000

Description:
Many gamers are doubtful, mystified, or think that this will be beyond amusing.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter PUBG's Ally Duo mode is now in testing on Steam Nvidia's ACE tech is powering the AI teammates in this mode You can play with an AI teammate against other human + AI duos until the end of June PUBG Battlegrounds now offers the option to play with an AI teammate powered by Nvidia in a new mode which is available to try in beta for the next two weeks.

As VideoCardz noticed , the Ally Duo Mode is now available through PUBG Arcade, and represents Krafton and Nvidia teaming up to use Team Green's ACE technology as aired back at the start of the year to create an AI teammate called Ella. PUBG Ally was in testing early in 2026 and has now reached the point where it's ready for public consumption at least as a beta, where the mode will be playable through to the end of June on Steam. Latest Videos From Watch full video here:

This is an opportunity to "collect invaluable real-world player feedback, to guide the future of AI agents in games," Nvidia tells us.

How does Ella work exactly? The best way to find out is to watch the demo in the YouTube video below. You may like Microsoft is bringing AI features to more Windows 11 PCs via Nvidia's GPUs 3 key reasons why gamers hate DLSS 5 and why Nvidia may yet win them over 'I think generative AI is going to get much faster and much better' The creator of Fallout is optimistic about AI's future, but I'm not so sure YouTube Watch On As you can see, the idea is that you have an AI teammate you can talk to, and more to the point, give orders, or ask for help, using natural spoken language (or typed text if you prefer), with responses from the AI designed to be suitably 'human' in feeling and tone.

At least that's the idea here, but watching the brief demo leaves me with a lot of doubts about what "represents a new generation of AI game characters designed for deeper immersion" according to Nvidia. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Analysis: reaping what was sown a long time ago It should be no surprise that Nvidia is dressing this up in a lot of fancy talk. Last year when it introduced the concept, Team Green
talked about revolutionary Co-Playable Characters or CPCs, as opposed to boring old NPCs. Of course, as my colleague on TechRadar Christian Guyton noted at the time , these are just glorified bots and we've had bots for
ages (PUBG has, too).

In fact, I was deathmatching bots some 30 years ago in Quake, when the Reaper Bot mod arrived. (The Reaper was a horrifically accurate CPU-controlled creation positively lethal if it got hold of the lightning gun but overall it had the strategic skills and gaming savvy of a house brick, and was easily trounced by a reasonably good player, but hey, these were very early days here.) (Image credit: Nvidia / Krafton) So, this isn't a revolutionary idea, or the next step on from NPCs, or whatever accolades relating to gaming greatness that Nvidia might want to heap on PUBG Ally. However, there is more to Ella than this, in fairness to Team Green. One half of Ella is the bot intelligence to actually play the shooter well enough (hopefully), but the other side is the AI models the Nvidia ACE trimmings. What to read next Capcom to use generative AI to boost productivity, but not for game content
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These are small language models (SLMs requiring an Nvidia GPU with at least 8GB of video RAM) driving the AI companion's "realistic" decision-making processes, and facilitating communication via speech models. Ella is
"equipped with the ability to understand and respond to game situations in a human-like manner" over and above your typical game bot, but I'm not
convinced from the demo.

Ella feels painfully artificial not human and borderline sycophantic in the game footage shared by Nvidia. OK, so this is still early testing, but I'm
not getting any real 'revolutionary' vibes about the gaming skills or chat on show here.

Maybe we'll get selectable personalities eventually and even true-to-life gaming types. For realism there definitely needs to be an occasional AI teammate who throws a massive hissy fit about how rubbish you are before abruptly quitting, surely?

The general reaction to the emergence of PUBG Ally has been as you might expect: some gamers are curious, while others are mystified or even scathing, and there are more in the latter camp. Some are convinced this will be highly amusing: "I look forward to the comedy that this feature will produce." While others on the same Reddit thread are already trash-talking the AI's ability
to play.

I'm not surprised at the feedback thus far given the way Ella has been realized by Nvidia, and the AI being overly chatty hasn't gone down well either. Players engaged in a competitive game don't want flowery chat putting them off their flow, and maybe obscuring important sound effects that are clues as to where the enemy might be and so forth.

The whole thing leaves me rather cold at this stage, frankly, but among more casual gamers or those who don't have friends to play with at the time, and don't want to hang around in lobbies, or be exposed to toxicity in pick-ups Nvidia's AI teammate may yet find a place.

As long as the gamer in question owns a decently beefy Nvidia graphics card , that is, and another concern of mine is how much of the GPU's resources are these AI models demanding? Presumably not a lot they are 'small' by nature but gamers are notoriously unhappy about anything running interference with their FPS, no matter how slight. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/forget-npcs-now-we-have-cpcs-co-playab le-characters-or-ai-teammates-in-pubg-courtesy-of-nvidia-ace-tech-but-im-not-i mpressed-so-far


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