Ubisoft wants to offer players game support with an app known as SAM, the company's first personal gaming assistant. SAM will be integrated to the Ubisoft Club companion app for mobile devices, and essentially acts like A.I., such as Alexa or Siri. Users can open the app and ask simple questions, like when will an upcoming Ubisoft title release, as well as more specific game advice. Let’s say you can’t find an Easter egg in Assassin’s Creed Origins that your friends are hyped about—all you have to do is ask SAM where said Easter egg is located and its A.I. will find you the best source for information.
“We wanted to develop an A.I. that can help you while you’re playing your console, but also outside of it,” Charles Huteau, Creative Director of Ubisoft Club and SAM developer, told Player.One. “Let’s say you have a question about a Ubisoft game regarding your data and saves, you can ask SAM. We worked with Google Cloud to develop this A.I. to be able to understand what the user is asking and to translate that for the AI to take action.”
But SAM doesn’t do a general internet search to find the information. Ubisoft’s goal with SAM is to keep users from having to weed through content to get to the solution they need. Rather than bring a query to Google, the Ubisoft team curates the content shared on the Ubisoft Club app. Developers who’ve worked on the game choose the best guides and walkthroughs to share on SAM. Users won’t have to worry about spam content.
It’s also SAM’s job to get to know the app user. For example, SAM will recognize a player’s preferred weapon in Rainbow Six Siege and tailor search results to the playstyle. Users rate said content with a thumbs up or down, depending on how useful it was to them. If the user doesn’t like the video or written guide, the Ubisoft team will be notified, thus further tailoring the content to be as niche as possible
Like Alexa and Siri, SAM’s goal isn’t to be intrusive. While SAM knows how many hours you’ve put into a game and character levels, the AI will never assume you need help or offer needless suggestions. You won’t get notifications on your phone saying, “Hey, we see you’re having trouble in Rainbow Six Siege . Here’s a helpful video!” The kinds of notifications and how active SAM is on your mobile device is up to you. If you want SAM to be your moral support only when you need it, you can set it up that way. If you need SAM to hold your hand through an entire mission and give you all the tips, the AI will eventually be able to do that too. It’s meant to be a simple, user-friendly platform for Ubisoft game advice.
"It's a tool for us to know what kind of information the community would like to receive,” Huteau said. “It can be information regarding the game, such as release dates, the minimum specs requirement for a PC game you want, the last trailer for a game and tips to play. For example, I [can tell SAM] 'I'm stuck in ACO, can you help?' SAM can understand the abbreviations, so when I say 'ACO,' it knows I'm talking about Assassin’s Creed Origins. SAM will link me to content from the community like a YouTube who created walkthrough videos and I can access it directly."
Another cool feature for SAM is you don’t have to be logged onto your preferred console to use it. You can ask SAM for information regarding your games or upcoming releases directly through the app. And you can use SAM to interact with your friends. When you log into the Ubisoft Club app, you can see which of your buddies are online and invite them to game matches. Let’s say you want to create a Rainbow Six Siege team for a 9 p.m. match. SAM will send out a push notification inviting your select friends to join. It’ll even help organize matches with other players as well.
And SAM has personality, too. The AI will send users gifs and memes for encouragement. It will also give users fun little details about Ubisoft games, like the current weather in Assassin’s Creed Origins . If you really want to start some drama with SAM, you can even ask which Assassin it prefers, Bayek or Ezio. Well, at least that’s according to the trailer, which left off in a cliffhanger. Though we swoon over BAEyek, we’re team Ezio forever.
The SAM beta for Ubisoft Club app will be localized to Canada on Jan. 24. The more gamers that use SAM searches and rate the content, the more curated the information will be. Ubisoft has yet to confirm SAM’s global release date, but the company does plan on expanding to more markets. You can sign up for Ubisoft Club here.
