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Gaming gets real with AI
Financial Express Pune
|January 08, 2026
WE ALL KNOW the differences between the main character and the sidekick in a movie.
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Sure, everything revolves around the main character, but there's also subtle things, like how the crowd or a random passerby reacts to them. Notice how bystanders pay attention when the main character speaks-they enthusiastically wave, smile, cheer, or even break into dance. That is the aura of the main character. Even if we don't understand the language, just two minutes into the movie, we already know who the main characters are!
Now, there has been a major gap in video games, where players are the main characters, but NPCs (non-player characters) couldn't care less. The NPCs go about in their robot ways, completely unbothered by their surroundings. They walk by on loops, mutter the same dialogue, and ignore the chaos around them. They can dampen a player's main character vibes.
This story is from the January 08, 2026 edition of Financial Express Pune.
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