"Even after leaving the game, players might come to consider them as friends."

Image credit: Square Enix

The creator of the Dragon Quest series, Yuji Horii, hopes to use advances in AI to boost the camaraderie between players and their in-game companions.

As reported by Toyo Keizai , and spotted by Automaton , Horii spoke about the tech at the Google Cloud Next 2026 conference, calling AI "not just a convenient tool, but a friend to each individual player".

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"When I first created Dragon Quest, I wanted the townspeople's dialogue to sound as much like real human speech as possible," Horii said. "Now, AI can actually respond, so I think we can make them feel even more human.…