It seems that AI Darth Vader was only the beginning for Fortnite, as Epic Games just made a major announcement that their fully AI-generated NPC dialogue system is now available for Fortnite developers to use as an Experimental feature. This means that maps cannot be published with the AI NPCs enabled, but developers within Fortnite‘s Creative maps will be able to use the feature, test its capabilities and give Epic feedback.
The generative AI feature is known as “conversations“, and it gives NPCs the ability to speak with an AI generated voice and respond with their given personalities, react to player actions and trigger events for the player. NPCs even have the capability to remember events that happened within a gameplay session.
The conversations system is powered by Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash-Litte AI model, which processes audio inputs and creates text responses through Google’s own Cloud processing lines, whilst ElevenLabs is the technology used to generate AI voiced outputs. A watermark will be placed on Fortnite developer footage using the new Experimental feature to mark that these maps are not published, and cannot be accessed by players.
Whilst the conversations are currently an Experimental feature, Epic putting them into Fortnite does suggest that they intend to make this publicly available sometime in future. As referenced earlier, Fortnite formerly implemented an AI-voiced Darth Vader NPC, who was able to speak with players through voice or text inputs. Whilst the feature was popular initially for its outlandish nature, it was soon heavily misused and broke several of Fortnite‘s intended safety implementations.
Fans are not entirely pleased with the addition of generative AI into any area of Fortnite‘s ecosystem, but it’s been steadily on the rise. From the inclusion of skins inspired by AI characters like Tung Tung Tung Sahur to AI-generated music being included as Jam Tracks, it seems Epic are going all-in on AI.
The community has been strained ever since Fortnite both increased the price of V-Bucks for all players and had mass lay offs that saw over 1,000 employees lose their jobs at Epic. Despite this, the company is pushing forwards with its goals to “pay the bills”, including a Disney-themed extraction-shooter.
