PUBG’s new AI teammate is somehow more useless than my friends
PUBG‘s new Ally Duo game mode is a creepy letdown. The battle royale game has a limited-time experience right now that pairs you up with an LLM-powered teammate, Ella, who, on paper, behaves (and chats) like a regular human. It calls out enemy players, shoots at said players, and tells me every five minutes that it’s just a PUBG encyclopedia with legs.
Ally Duo takes place on Sanhok, with the smallest full PUBG map presumably giving the artificial teammate less room to get lost. Ella drops in with me like any other teammate, looting and chatting – I can ask it to keep an eye out for bits of equipment I need, weapons, and the like. I need a suppressor, so I asked Ella to look for one for me.
After wandering around the docks for a while, my teammate tells me they see another enemy and marks them on the map. This mark is over 200m away through some trees – an impressive spot. I ask them to engage the enemy at range, but am then told there are no enemies in sight. I can see them; they’re right there. I kill both myself.
Wandering further inland, Ella wanders off and tells me about a care package. I made my way across, but then I was told the care package had gone. Who took it, I asked – no new information. Cresting the hill, I can see the care package is still intact, so I approach only to be blasted by an enemy player in full sight of my AI companion.
“You’re down,” I’m told. Yeah, I got that, thanks, Ella. My time with PUBG’s artificial teammate was a disaster, and not only that, it refused to talk about anything outside of the game. No recipes, no popular tourist hotspots I should visit, nothing. At least when I’m getting blasted with my buddies, we can talk about the latest Everton defeat, you know?
The point of this AI excursion is totally lost on me until I factor in Krafton’s wider portfolio. It could be that its one billion dollar investment in a South Korean defense company specializing in AI is a complete coincidence, but after it came to light that Pokémon Go data trained AI to potentially assist military drones, I’m really skeptical.
Assuming the experiment is totally benign, which I’m sure we all hope it is, it doesn’t change the fact that Ella is rubbish. It’s a soulless companion that feeds me inconsistent information with zero banter – which is only a slight downgrade on what I usually play with. Sorry lads.