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Microsoft Muse AI: Not Making or Preserving Games

Last night, Microsoft announced Muse, a new generative AI breakthrough designed to aid gameplay ideation. The company also published some grainy-looking gifs of AI-generated gameplay footage, based on Xbox studio Ninja Theory’s multiplayer game Bleeding Edge.

Microsoft claimed that Muse would radically change how we preserve and experience classic games in the future, the algorithm could be used to make older games compatible with any device.

What is Muse Really Doing?

AI researcher and game designer Dr. Michael Cook explains, Muse was fed seven years of video footage of people playing Bleeding Edge.

So, what’s the point of all this? Well, as Cook writes, it’s so Microsoft researcher could ask Muse to predict what might come next if changes to a game were made.

The idea is Muse could be used as a shortcut tool for predicting and visualising how gameplay might adapt to a particular input by a developer. And, crucially, that developer is still a human.

Implications and Limitations

Xbox’s blog post, states that the company had simply empowered creative leaders here at Xbox to decide on the use of generative AI – suggesting there was no specific mandate from Microsoft to use AI, for now.

Cook raises concerns about Muse’s viability:

Game Preservation Misconceptions

Cook calls Phil Spencer’s comments on game preservation using Muse idiotic.

Despite a decade of AI growth, Cook says, there’s no method yet to measure what exactly an AI model has captured and what it has not