The core of the ‘Ally Duo’ mode released this time is an AI character named ‘Ella’. Ella is equipped with Krafton’s independently developed ‘Co-Playable Character (CPC)’ technology, so it understands the user’s voice commands in real time and responds flexibly to suit the situation. This character, implemented based on NVIDIA's ACE technology and on-device Small Language Model (SLM), has the ability to read the flow of the battlefield beyond simply reacting to the in-game system. When a user says, “Let’s find an item” or “Let’s modify the strategy,” Ella immediately understands the context of the conversation and performs active cooperative play, such as setting a movement route or collecting necessary items together.

While NPCs in existing games were ‘passive beings’ who only moved according to pre-programmed conditions, the biggest difference in PUBG Elai is that it is an ‘active colleague’ who learns through interaction with users and leads the flow of conversation. Particularly noteworthy is the real-time communication capability achieved through the combination of STT (speech recognition) and TTS (speech synthesis) technologies. Even if users use specific jargon during the game or give short commands in urgent situations, Ella responds immediately with minimal delay. This is expected to go beyond simple technical implementation and become a decisive factor in making users perceive artificial intelligence as a partner with whom they can share an emotional bond rather than a simple assistive tool.

Krafton's move is interpreted as an intention to go beyond simply providing new fun in games, and to set a standard for applying AI technology throughout the gaming industry. PUBG Elai, which has already proven its potential through a demonstration at the last GDC (Game Developers Conference), plans to support Korean, English, and Chinese through this beta service and verify its versatility in the global market. In particular, beyond simply being an auxiliary function that improves gaming skills, its value as a tool that allows content creators to create various situational dramas or share unique game play experiences with Ella is also attracting attention. This will serve as a foundation for infinitely expanding the scope of game content that users create with AI in the future.

In terms of technological advancement, this two-week beta test will carry out a very important mission of collecting data and ensuring technological stability. Krafton is planning to dramatically improve AI's judgment and language understanding by collecting the various trials and errors and feedback that users experience while communicating with Ella in the actual game environment. Krafton has already focused its company-wide capabilities on incorporating AI technology into games, including developing the ‘Raon’ series, a multi-modal AI model. The introduction of PUBG Elai will be an empirical example showing how the AI ​​research results accumulated so far can shine in actual commercial game services.