Does AI have a role in writing game stories? If so, how?
As a professional game writer who has written hundreds of thousands of words for video games, I’ll cut through the marketing gimmicks and tell you the truth.
1 — Why AI Should Never Write Your Game’s Story
Let’s get the truth out right at the start:
AI should not write your game’s story for you.
Not the characters.
Not the emotional arcs.
Not the dialogue.
Not the heart.
And no, that’s not because AI is “evil” or “dangerous” or “coming to take our jobs.”
Instead, it’s because creative work — real creative work — is inherently human.
When you play a game with a great story, you aren’t just reading text.
You’re experiencing someone’s humanity.
Their lived experience, their worldview, their memories, their intuition, their sense of humor, their emotional logic.
AI doesn’t have any of that.
It can’t have that.
AI is a pattern engine, not a soul.
And the difference shows.
In fact, players can feel it.
Handmade vs. Mass-Produced Creativity
Humans have always been good at telling when something is handmade versus mass-produced.
We can feel it in the brush strokes.
We can see it in the imperfections of pottery.
We can hear it in a live performance vs. “perfect” synthesized instruments.
AI-generated narrative feels the same way:
Clean, competent, technically “correct”…
…and absolutely soulless.
Assembly-line storytelling.
Manufactured “emotions.”
Narrative produced at scale.
And while that might be fine for automated emails or car manuals, it kills a game’s emotional impact.
Even players who like AI can usually sense it.
Something feels off.
Something is missing.
Something doesn’t hit the way it should.
What Gets Lost When AI Writes Story
When AI writes your story, here’s what disappears instantly:
- Subtext and continuity
- Human emotional pacing
- Theme mastery
- Intentionality
- Symbolism and metaphor
- Character psychology
- Personal lived experience
All of those things are what make a story true.
Not just “factually true,” but emotionally true.
The kind of truth that players remember ten years later.
AI can remix truth, but it cannot originate truth.
If You Only Want a Story Because “Games Need Story”… Don’t
Here’s an important truth:
If the only reason you want a story in your game is because “games should probably have stories,” and your plan is to let AI spit out something…
Please don’t.
Having no story is better than a hollow story.
A bland, AI-written plot will hurt your game more than no plot at all.
If narrative isn’t important to your game, it’s okay — you don’t need to force it.
But if story is important, then it must be human.
2 — The Role AI Actually Plays in Professional Narrative Design
So if AI shouldn’t write the story…
What role does it play?
This is where things get interesting — because AI can have a real, meaningful, legitimate role in game writing work.
It’s just not the role companies, tech evangelists, or “AI doomers” want you to believe.
AI isn’t a storyteller.
AI is a productivity tool.
A powerful tool.
A useful tool.
A tool that can make you faster, smarter, more efficient, and more capable.
But still — just a tool.
Let’s break down the real ways AI improves narrative design without replacing the actual art.
AI as a Research Tool (Like Google… But More)
Imagine you’re writing a medieval story and need to know:
- What did peasants eat?
- How did blacksmiths operate?
- What tools did they use?
- How strict were feudal laws about land rights?
Or imagine you’re designing a sci-fi quest where a specific alloy reacts explosively to oxygen exposure.
20 years ago, you’d:
- Go to the library,
- Request interlibrary loans,
- Interview someone at a local university,
- And maybe end up reading a 600-page textbook just for a single detail.
7 years ago, you’d:
- Search Google,
- Read online articles,
- Browse forums,
- Dig through technical papers,
- And maybe still end up at the library for the deeper stuff.
Now?
You ask AI.
Not because AI is “the source of all truth,“
but because AI is the fastest way to collect, summarize, compare, and explore information.
AI helps you find information. That’s it.
It does not replace your judgment about whether that information is correct.
A narrative designer with good research instincts + AI is a powerhouse.
A narrative designer who blindly trusts AI is a crash waiting to happen.
Use AI as a research accelerator — nothing more, nothing less.
AI as an Editorial Assistant
Here’s another thing:
No one complained when spell-check arrived.
No one protested when grammar checkers became mainstream.
No one boycotted Grammarly for helping with sentence clarity.
And yet, suddenly, when AI can help you catch typos or improve flow… people act like using it makes you “less of a writer.”
That’s hilariously incorrect.
AI is phenomenal at:
- Spotting grammar issues
- Improving clarity
- Suggesting more natural dialogue flow (not writing dialogue itself!)
- Checking for wording repetition
- Identifying awkward sentences
- Helping you match a co-writer’s tone
- Translating or checking foreign language phrases (still do research though)
- Ensuring in-world terminology stays consistent (be sure to double check)
It’s the same thing word processors have been doing for decades — just more advanced.
It does not replace creativity.
It assists your creativity.
AI as a Brainstorming Partner
Here’s where AI becomes genuinely fun.
If you type something like:
“What’s an alternate tongue twister for: ‘Hello, Captain! The ship is ship-shape for shailing… or rather sailing…!’”
Google will return irrelevant results, if any at all.
AI will give you 15 variations, then help you refine them.
It’s like having:
- a whiteboard
- a notepad
- a rubber duck
- a coworker that carries that joke book around
- and your most energetic brainstorming friend …all in one place.
AI helps you think.
AI helps you break through blocks.
AI helps you generate starting points (not final points!).
And because AI can adapt over time, it can tailor its suggestions to the way you think.
That’s not cheating.
That’s powerful.
That’s useful.
3 — Humanity as the Core of Great Game Narrative
Now we reach the heart of it.
AI can be a tool, a guide, a research buddy, a notepad, a thought processor…
But the part of narrative design that matters — the part that stays with players and changes them — must be human.
This isn’t philosophy.
This is reality.
Players can feel when something was written by a human.
And players can feel when something wasn’t.
Why AI Cannot Replace Human Creativity
AI doesn’t have:
- Lived experience
- Emotional memory
- Taste and preference
- Childhood and growing up
- Hopes, fears, beliefs
- Non-linear thinking
- Cultural identity
- Regrets
- Passion, infatuation, attraction
- Subconscious intention
- A sense of humor
- A sense of timing
- The ability to mean something
- A desire to help others
All great storytelling comes from those things.
AI can use patterns.
AI can remix.
AI can imitate.
But it cannot originate human meaning.
Creativity Is Not a One-Size-Fits-All Process
Some people thrive with blank pages.
Some people need scaffolding.
Some people need a sounding board.
Some people need to talk ideas out loud.
Different brains create differently.
That’s a good thing!
AI doomers scream that “using AI at all makes you a fraud.” AI evangelists scream that “AI will replace all writers, so give us your money.”
Both are wrong.
If you want to use AI more or less than someone else, that’s okay, and even healthy!
It’s not about whether you use AI.
It’s about how you use it.
And whether you’re letting it replace the human part of the process that actually matters.
A Painful Personal Example: The One Time I Let AI Write the Final Output
Alright, time to tell an embarrassing story.
Out of the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written for games — all by hand — there was one time I let AI write something that I pasted directly into a narrative design document.
I was creating a character:
A freelance “optimizer” who specializes in finding and fixing inefficiencies in personal and business processes.
I wanted to make a list of tasks she might help clients with — the kind of jobs she’d take.
An hour went by and I only had a few examples.
We’ve all had those “brain no work” days.
So I asked AI to generate some.
It did, and the list was exactly the kinds of tasks I was trying to think of.
So without thinking, I copied and pasted it into my character’s design document.
Not long after, I literally felt physically sick.
I hated what I had done.
Not because I had used AI.
But because I hated that I’d pasted the end result without filtering it through my own creativity.
That document didn’t feel like mine anymore.
It felt wrong.
Thankfully, I deleted the entire section.
Then I rewrote it from scratch — myself, by hand.
And guess what?
The final version was better.
More intentional.
More meaningful.
More alive.
AI helped restart my thinking process, sure.
But the actual storytelling — the part that truly mattered — only worked once it was human again.
The Secret Ingredient Only Humans Have
AI can assist the craft.
AI can support the craft.
AI can speed up the craft.
But AI cannot perform the craft.
Humans bring:
- meaning
- emotion
- perspective
- intuition
- flavor
- passion
- subtlety
- mistakes
- beauty
- lived truth
- right and wrong
Those are the things players connect with.
Those are the things AI cannot mimic — and never will.
And those are the things that make game narrative unforgettable.
4 — The Myth That “Using AI at All Makes You a Fraud”
There’s a strange belief floating around online — especially in creative circles — that using AI in any capacity makes you “less of a writer” or “less of a real artist.”
This idea is not only wrong…
It’s historically illiterate.
Because here’s the truth:
Everyone already uses AI.
Even the people who claim they don’t.
And even if you tried — genuinely tried — to avoid touching AI, you couldn’t.
It’s already baked into the modern world.
Let’s break that down.
You’re Already Using AI — Even If You Think You Aren’t
If you use Google, congratulations: you use AI.
If you shop online — or even in-person — you use AI (recommendation engines, fraud detection, checkout optimizations, logistics systems, theft prevention systems… all AI).
If you use a smartphone made in the last three years, it runs multiple AI systems in the background.
If you drive a modern car, it’s packed with AI that:
- stabilizes the wheels
- adjusts lane positioning
- optimizes fuel efficiency
- monitors road conditions
- even tunes the audio for the cabin shape
If you use a smart home device, it’s AI.
If you watch Netflix or YouTube, the recommendation system is AI.
If you walk past a security camera at a grocery store, that system likely uses AI.
And even if you live off-grid with no electricity, no devices, no internet, no modern anything?
…you’re definitely being watched by AI. (And honestly, for the rest of us, that’s probably a good thing.)
Point is: You can’t avoid AI.
Not unless you plan to time travel back to the 1400s (and who actually wants no plumbing?).
So demonizing AI as a concept isn’t just pointless… it’s hypocritical.
Rejecting AI Entirely Would Be Like Rejecting…
Imagine someone refusing to use:
- Word processors
- Spell-check
- Search engines
- Grammar tools
- Version control
- Undo/redo
- Digital art tools
- Any form of editing software
…because “real artists shouldn’t need help.”
It would be absurd.
When spell-check was introduced, no writer said:
“Real authors should spell every word correctly manually. Spell-check is cheating.”
When Grammarly came along, no one said:
“If a computer suggests moving a comma, your novel is invalid.”
When Google appeared, no one said:
“Real researchers should drive to libraries and decipher microfiche.”
These tools made us better.
AI — when used properly — is the same.
It’s the evolution of those tools, not the replacement of authorship.
5 — Practical Guidelines: How Game Writers Should Actually Use AI
Let’s cut through the theory and get practical.
This section is the “bookmark this” part — what AI is good for, what it’s not good for, and how to actually integrate it into your workflow without losing your soul, your creativity, or your credit as the author.
Do Use AI For: (Helpful, Healthy, Productivity-Boosting Tasks)
These are the areas where AI shines — and where using it will make you a better writer, not a worse one.
✅ Research
- Quick fact-gathering
- High-level summaries
- Historical references
- Technical explanations
- Comparative data
- Cultural/language verification
Always verify important things though. And I’m not “just saying” that.
✅ Brainstorming & Ideation
- Generating variations
- Getting unstuck
- “Rubber duck” thinking
- Exploring possibilities
- Wordplay, names, titles, snippets
- Asking “what if?” questions
✅ Editing & Refinement
- Proofreading
- Grammar
- Rephrasing for clarity
- Flow improvement (I prefer to do this myself, but that’s a “me” thing)
- Catching repetition
- Polishing dialogue tone
- Simplifying overly complex sentences
✅ Continuity & Consistency Checks
- Character design documents
- Lore standardization
- Timeline verification
- Worldbuilding cohesion
✅ Placeholder / Skeleton Work
- Basic outlines
- High-level concept lists
- Wireframe bullet points
- Structural scaffolding
Everything in this list is equivalent to what we already do with:
- spell-check
- thesauruses
- editors
- research assistants
- worldbuilding notebooks
- writing groups
AI just compresses them into a more efficient form.
Now, to be clear, you don’t have to use AI for any of the things above.
In fact, I don’t use AI for most of the things above.
But that’s not because I’m stubborn; it’s because I genuinely like doing those things myself.
(Except some of the grammar stuff, haha.)
Do Not Use AI For: (The Soul of Storytelling)
These are the parts of narrative that must remain human.
Kick AI out the door for these parts.
❌ Writing your actual story
Plot, pacing, theme integration — these are human things.
❌ Writing emotional arcs
AI can simulate emotion. It cannot feel it. Therefore, it cannot write it.
❌ Writing real dialogue
AI can imitate speech. It cannot “hear” it the way humans do.
❌ Designing your characters
True character creation involves morals, empathy, personality, individual perceptions, and psychological uniqueness. AI cannot replicate that.
❌ Deciding what your story means
Meaning comes from experiences, morals, and beliefs.
❌ Generating the final output
Breaking past creative blocks? Definitely.
Brainstorm? Absolutely.
Final story that ships with your game? Never.
Your players deserve something real.
And you deserve the satisfaction knowing you did it.
The Golden Rule of Video Game Narrative Design
If I had to distill all of this into one guiding sentence, it would be this:
AI can assist the craft, but it cannot perform the craft.
Use AI to amplify your strengths — not replace your voice.
6 — The Real Future of AI + Video Game Narrative Design
Let’s talk about the long-term picture.
Not the hype.
Not the fear.
Not the “AI will replace everyone” garbage.
The real, lived, practical future of storytelling and AI.
AI Will Become Normal — Just Like Every Previous Tool
Every major technological shift in creative history went through the same pattern:
- Fear — “This will ruin everything.”
- Controversy — “This is cheating.”
- Adoption — “Okay, it’s actually helpful.”
- Normalization — “Everyone uses this now and we feel stupid for fearing it.”
Word processors went through this cycle.
Photoshop went through this cycle.
Digital cameras went through this cycle.
Tablets went through this cycle.
Flat-screens went through this cycle.
Grammarly went through this cycle.
Even undo/redo went through this cycle.
AI is now going through the exact same stages.
In five to ten years, AI-assisted creative work will be completely normal — not scandalous.
Just another part of the workflow.
Not the thing that creates the work, but the thing that helps you create it.
Human Creativity Will Become More Valuable, Not Less
Ironically, the more AI-generated content floods the world, the more valuable human work becomes.
(This reality has already been painfully felt by companies who tried to make a quick buck…)
AI-generated stories tend to be:
- safe
- generic
- predictable
- flat
- emotionless
- similar
Which means a human-written story — even a flawed one — stands out instantly.
In a world of infinite machine-made sludge, human art becomes premium.
Emotion.
Perspective.
Morals.
Personality.
Experience.
Voice.
Intention.
These things become rarer when AI becomes common.
And scarcity drives value up.
What Will Never Change
No matter how advanced AI becomes…
No matter how many models, parameters, or architectural breakthroughs happen…
There are three things AI will never replace:
1. The Human Desire for Meaning
Stories matter because we matter.
2. The Human Desire for Connection
Players don’t want “more content.” They want resonance.
3. The Human Ability to Create Something That Didn’t Exist Before
AI recombines. Humans originate.
And that’s why the future of AI + video game narrative design is not destruction, but enhancement.
AI will help you do more.
AI will help you go faster.
AI will help you think deeper.
But AI will never take away the part that makes storytelling worth doing — your humanity.
7 — AI Didn’t Land on the Moon. Humans Did.
AI is a monumental leap for technology.
One of the greatest inventions of our lifetime.
But it’s not a human.
It didn’t land on the moon.
It didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel.
It didn’t write the Bible.
It didn’t decide what gives you hope.
Creation did that.
People did that.
Humans did that.
Creators.
Designers.
Writers.
Dreamers.
People who cared enough to make something real.
Every world-changer in history who came before you, they believed in you.
They did what they did for you.
And they dreamed of what your day would be like.
So live up to it.
So, after all of this — the warnings, the encouragement, the real talk, the anecdotes, the philosophy, the practicality — here’s the simple, human truth:
AI can help you write your game.
AI cannot tell your game’s story.
Use AI for the process — research, brainstorming, editing, grammar.
But write the story yourself.
The moment you let AI create the final output — the part players will actually experience — something breaks.
Your ownership breaks.
Your voice breaks.
Your integrity breaks.
Your connection to your players breaks.
And even if they don’t know exactly why… players feel that break.
They feel the hollowness.
They feel the absence of a human soul.
Players don’t connect with flawless prose.
They connect with flawed characters.
With human emotions.
With the parts of humanity that AI cannot simulate because it has never lived them.
Your job — the job of a narrative designer — is not to be a machine.
Your job is to translate humanity into story.
And humanity is messy.
Beautiful.
Awkward.
Chaotic.
Inspired.
Conflicted.
Alive.
Painful.
Full of mistakes.
And full of joy.
AI can’t do that.
Only you can.
You are the master storyteller.
Your players aren’t here for “content.”
They’re here for connection.
And the connection comes from you — your experiences, your heart, your point of view, your craft, your humanity.
AI can assist the journey.
But it can’t walk it for you.
And it certainly can’t replace the part that makes your story unforgettable:
You — the human telling it.