Project M

Project M – NCSOFT Unveils Its Upcoming Unreal Engine 5 Game. Digital Humans Reach the Next Level

South Korean company NCSOFT is primarily known for developing MMORPGs. During GDC 2023, the company unveiled a brand-new game currently in development. The newly released trailer for Project M showcases NCSOFT’s latest technological achievements in creating highly realistic digital humans. The game is being developed using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 and is planned for release on consoles.

NCSOFT is well known for titles such as Aion, Lineage, and Blade & Soul. This time, however, the company is placing greater emphasis on highly detailed characters and the use of cutting-edge technologies. At the beginning of the trailer, viewers are introduced to a digitally recreated version of the company’s Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Taekjin Kim. The underlying AI-powered technology demonstrates impressive capabilities. The character’s voice has been generated entirely by a speech synthesis system that faithfully reproduces the speaker’s original accent and emotional expression. Judging by the video, the result is remarkably convincing.

Recently, one of our readers commented on Unreal Engine 5, suggesting that after demonstrating its graphical capabilities, the next step would be „automatic lip synchronization for different languages without having to create separate animations for every character.” As it turns out, that feature has already become a reality.

The digitally generated face is powered by NCSOFT’s proprietary Voice-to-Face technology. Not only are facial expressions and animations generated automatically, but AI algorithms also synchronize lip movements with the spoken dialogue. This technology is expected to significantly accelerate game development, among many other potential applications.

Project M will also feature branching storylines that change based on the player’s decisions. NCSOFT describes the title as its „most ambitious project to date.” The game is being developed using 3D scanning, VFX technologies, and motion capture. At the moment, the company has not announced even an approximate release date. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to expect that a game incorporating such advanced technologies will, at the very least, serve as an impressive showcase of the current state of the art.

The demo for this game is available to download below.