Large Language Models and Video Games: A Preliminary Scoping Review
This is an incremental review paper that synthesizes existing research to help researchers and practitioners understand the current landscape of LLMs in video games.
The authors conducted a scoping review of 76 papers from 2022 to early 2024 to capture the state of large language model (LLM) research in video games, focusing on areas like game AI, development, and narrative, providing an early foundation for future work.
Large language models (LLMs) hold interesting potential for the design, development, and research of video games. Building on the decades of prior research on generative AI in games, many researchers have sped to investigate the power and potential of LLMs for games. Given the recent spike in LLM-related research in games, there is already a wealth of relevant research to survey. In order to capture a snapshot of the state of LLM research in games, and to help lay the foundation for future work, we carried out an initial scoping review of relevant papers published so far. In this paper, we review 76 papers published between 2022 to early 2024 on LLMs and video games, with key focus areas in game AI, game development, narrative, and game research and reviews. Our paper provides an early state of the field and lays the groundwork for future research and reviews on this topic.