Large Language Models and Games: A Survey and Roadmap

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive survey and roadmap of how large language models are applied in games, highlighting current uses, potential roles, challenges, and future research directions in this emerging interdisciplinary field.

Contribution

It is the first extensive survey and roadmap at the intersection of large language models and games, outlining current applications, unexplored areas, and future opportunities.

Findings

LLMs are used for dialogue, content generation, and game design.

Identifies underexplored areas and promising future directions.

Discusses limitations and potential of LLMs in gaming.

Abstract

Recent years have seen an explosive increase in research on large language models (LLMs), and accompanying public engagement on the topic. While starting as a niche area within natural language processing, LLMs have shown remarkable potential across a broad range of applications and domains, including games. This paper surveys the current state of the art across the various applications of LLMs in and for games, and identifies the different roles LLMs can take within a game. Importantly, we discuss underexplored areas and promising directions for future uses of LLMs in games and we reconcile the potential and limitations of LLMs within the games domain. As the first comprehensive survey and roadmap at the intersection of LLMs and games, we are hopeful that this paper will serve as the basis for groundbreaking research and innovation in this exciting new field.