
Earlier this week, an official PlayStation video leaked online — showing a prototype demo of someone talking to an AI-powered version of Aloy from Horizon Forbidden Dawn — and those who saw it have been reminded of "Project Milo".
Sony has clearly been very keen to take it down ever since, so we're not going to host the full video in this article, but you can view a little snippet of it in the image down below (thanks, The Verge).
In the presentation, a member of the PlayStation Studios Advanced Technology Group explains that the prototype is simply just a "glimpse of what is possible", and then introduces the demo which shows him talking to the character and receiving real-time responses to his questions, both in a face-to-face setting and when playing the actual game. He asks about things like her character's background, the environment she's traversing, and even what the current time is.

There's nothing to suggest Sony is actively trying to push this technology into its current games right now, as it sounds like this prototype was made pretty quickly and with a small staff, but clearly it's a hint at what the future might hold.
And of course, we saw something very similar to this back in the Project Milo days! For those who don't recall it, Project Milo was a highly ambitious experiment for the Xbox 360 Kinect that racked up massive attention back at E3 2009, showing a real person talking to a virtual boy called Milo and receiving very lifelike responses.
Project Milo was seemingly too ahead of its time though - it never ended up coming to market, and the E3 presentation was ultimately classed as a "tech demo". Over 15 years later, Sony clearly seems keen to experiment with it again!
What do you make of this? Did you think Project Milo was cool? Let us know down in the comments.
Comments 15
This simply shows that Xbox were too ahead of the game with project Milo, as this type of functionality will surely become prevalent in the next gen or two.
I look forward to seeing it...
AI (both this, what MS revealed a few weeks back, and other AI tools that will pop up in time to pass), I think, will be fundamental going forward for game dev. There's endless possibilities and a lot of potential for lifting the workload - potentially shortening game dev length time in the long run.
The next Xbox console is going to incorporate a ton of AI… Microsoft is all about AI now. What it will be used for, we shall see. Game guide and copilot for sure, maybe more, maybe on device or cloud. Probably both.
Ah yes Milo. MS were ridiculed about it as it was deemed creepy. MS were just ahead of their time, again! They just can't seem to convert their innovations and ideas, instead others do it later and with greater success. Must be so frustrating for them.
@Dalamar73 I attended a lecture by the producer of Fable 3 and The Journey. The Journey was developed using the tech from Mylo as they could never figure out how to build it into a game. In any case it actually bloody worked and wasn’t some smoke and mirrors tech demo!
Lionhead is dead, long live Lionhead!
At least it's not as stupid as the AI crap Xbox is trying to push, so that's something I guess.
staged or not milo was just creepy as hell.
@Bigmanfan Sony has it as well, it's going to be everywhere.
@Rog-X Hopefully it won't be after all these idiots figure out that it won't work.
We need ideas like Sega's SEAMAN to fake the macabre.
I personally thought Milo was a cool idea and looked forward to it. Talking to Aloy in a Horizon game sounds pretty cool too. I think it would be cool after a big boss battle for your character to give their opinion of how the fight went and what they thought of it. In the middle of a battle you think you got a nice strategy planned out only for your character to say ' I can't believe I'm doing something so stupid but here I go anyway. Implemented the right way could be really cool and really help you to connect to your character in way unheard of today.
As long as Peter Molyneux isnt around to hype it up I think they should be good.
This is how Skynet started and that didn't end too well 😅
Uff, even with this pre recorded fake AI, Sony fails to come even close to the life like Milo and to think how long has it been from that! It is obvious Sony tried their best, but to no ones suprice, they have to resort to smoke and mirrors yet again, as they always do.
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