Nvidia and Krafton debuted “co-playable characters,” also called CPCs, at CES 2025. Nvidia Ace is used to create these AI-driven companions that players can interact with in-game and who will learn from their actions. We will first see these CPCs as part of inZOI when it launches in March before the tech expands out to other Krafton games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Battle royale PUBG is calling its system PUBG Ally, and it will allow solo players to drop into a match with an AI companion who they can ask for help. The CPC will look for specific pickups or vehicles the player asks for and dynamically fight alongside them in a gunfight. It will even speak back to the player with an AI-generated voice. Nvidia released a video showing off the PUBG Ally in action, which will give you a better idea of how this all works in-game.
Meanwhile, inZOI is a life simulator like The Sims, so it will let players create CPCs called “Smart Zoi.” A Smart Zoi will dynamically react to what’s going on around them in the game world more than a standard NPC would. A video shows how a Smart Zoi could feed a hungry NPC, help a lost one, and encourage a street performer all on its own. It will give AI-generated reasonings for each of its actions and, while sleeping, will analyze its actions the previous day to refine its behavior the next day.
These CPCs will function through the use of an on-device small language model, which Krafton created using Nvidia Ace. Krafton CEO CH Kim said in a press release that his company wants “to closely collaborate with Nvidia to drive the transformation of the user experience with AI-powered innovation built with Nvidia Ace, such as CPC, that’s poised to redefine the future of gaming.”
While inZOI launches for Steam on March 28, PUBG: Battlegrounds is already available for free across PC and consoles. Krafton tells Digital Trends that CPCs will be first introduced in inZOI at its early access release as an “experimental feature.” After that, Krafton said it will “gradually share updates on its further development and the potential application of CPC technology to other games.”
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.