"The studios that succeed won't be the ones using the most AI, they'll be the ones using AI entirely in service of the player experience," says CEO
Studio Atelico has launched its Atelico AI Engine into Early Access.
The studio's technology, first used in its debut game Bobium Brawlers, is designed to run on-device instead of relying on data centres.
The Atelico AI Engine works with Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot, enabling developers to generate images, run language models, implement speech systems, and create AI-driven character behaviors.
The engine allows AI to run alongside gameplay without impacting rendering performance and removes cloud dependencies across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Linux, on both GPU and CPU.
"Until now, developers have had to choose between intelligent gameplay, performance and creative control," said Studio Atelico CEO Piero Molino.
"We built the Atelico AI Engine so studios don't have to make those trade-offs. The studios that succeed won't be the ones using the most AI, they'll be the ones using AI entirely in service of the player experience."
Developers interested in Studio Atelico's technology can request access through the company's website.
Earlier this year, GamesIndustry.biz spoke with Studio Atelico about how it used its technology to develop Bobium Brawlers, a project designed to showcase the engine.
"Our long-term aim would be to be the Epic Games of AI," Molino told us. "Where you both do games that are made possible by new technology, and then the technology helps create new games. It's a self-reinforcing loop."
Molino and chief product officer Chris Olson also discussed how the company's AI-first ecosystem leverages generative AI trained on its artists' work.
"We're not looking to reduce steps in the workflow so that you can fire half your art team," said Olson. "We have an art director. We pay our artists. We recently just released a document that's in draft form, but it hints at where we want to go, called ARC, the Artist Rights Contract, and it's so that an artist can use this as a way to interact and protect their livelihood and their art."
"It allows them to define what their art can be used for, gives them a chance to participate in the upside if their art is trained on the models, and very specific use cases. It's only used for this game. You have to renegotiate if you're going to use the art for other purposes."
Molino added: "Because we train our own models for doing these things on our own art and our own, in this case, our own decks being created in-house, so it's our own data. We are doing it ethically; we're not replacing anyone here. We are just creating something that would not have been possible before with data that we own."