Sony is exploring a patent for an AI-powered ‘ghost assistance’ system that could provide in-game guidance or control, featuring customisable characters and potentially transforming gameplay assistance.
Sony is exploring an AI-driven “ghost assistance” system that would place an AI-controlled character into a live game session to demonstrate actions, offer verbal guidance or even take control to complete tasks for the player, according to a report by Polygon summarising a recent patent filing. The technology, described in the patent as generating a “ghost character” connected to an artificial intelligence engine, would provide contextual examples tailored to the player’s immediate situation. [1][2]
“The interactive actions by the ghost character are configured to progress the ghost character along an interactive path of the game,” the patent states, illustrating that the ghost would follow and perform the same in-game sequences a player must complete. The filing adds that players would likely need to enable a specific mode for the feature to activate, suggesting an opt-in design that could be adjusted for how intrusive the help is. [1][2]
According to the patent, the level of assistance could range from subtle overlays indicating what to do next, to explicit button-input examples, to full conversational interaction in natural language, or to the ghost performing the actions itself. Polygon highlights that Sony uses the term “AI” throughout the filing but does not promise a particular underlying model; the document does, however, describe training the system “from a plurality of training footage sources” including prior playthroughs and publicly available online content. That training approach implies a system informed by aggregated gameplay footage rather than a single scripted tutor. [1][2]
The patent goes further, allowing the ghost character’s appearance to be essentially anything: “The ghost character can be represented as a character from a movie, a character figure from another game, or a user-generated character,” the filing reads. The document even uses a concrete example: “By way of example, the ghost character can be an animated representation of all-knowing Yoda from Star Wars.” That example shows Sony considering familiar character skins for the assistant, though the filing is not an announcement of licensing or final design choices. [1][2]
Industry coverage and earlier filings place this patent in a wider pattern of Sony experimenting with AI helpers and automation on consoles. GamesRadar and other outlets have previously reported related Sony patents for voice-activated assistants for PlayStation consoles, for AI replacement players in multiplayer matches, and for AI that could play on behalf of a user or detect user identity via how a controller is picked up. Those filings collectively suggest Sony is investigating multiple ways to augment or automate gameplay and the user experience. [3][6][7][4]
The patent also contemplates more invasive sensing, such as tracking a player’s gaze or using a camera to capture the player’s real-world environment to inform assistance. That prospect has prompted privacy and security concerns among observers; Polygon notes that patents outline possibilities rather than guaranteed products and that the technology could take years to reach consumers, if at all. The current patent is a 2025 filing building on an earlier 2023 submission, and analysts expect hardware and supply constraints to delay any major new-console launches. As Polygon points out, such a system might not appear until a future console generation. [1][2]
Sony’s patent is framed as a technical specification rather than a consumer promise. According to the patents database entry for WO2025080356A1, the filing covers distributed processing, continuous learning from additional game scenarios, and multiple sources of training footage, indicating how broadly the company is thinking about the problem. Until Sony makes an official product announcement, the company’s filings should be read as exploratory work that may inform future features while leaving questions of licensing, privacy safeguards and commercial availability unresolved. [2][5]
📌 Reference Map:
##Reference Map:
- [1] (Polygon) – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 6
- [2] (Patents.google WO2025080356A1) – Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2, Paragraph 3, Paragraph 4, Paragraph 7
- [3] (GamesRadar) – Paragraph 5
- [6] (Den of Geek) – Paragraph 5
- [7] (TechRadar) – Paragraph 5
- [4] (GamesRadar – controller login patent) – Paragraph 5
- [5] (Hypebeast) – Paragraph 7
Source: Noah Wire Services
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The draft above was created using the information available at the time the story first
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Score:
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Notes:
The narrative is based on a recent patent filing by Sony, published on April 17, 2025. The earliest known publication date of substantially similar content is April 17, 2025. The report appears to be original and not recycled from other sources. The inclusion of updated data, such as the specific patent number and publication date, justifies a high freshness score. No discrepancies in figures, dates, or quotes were found. The report does not include recycled older material. No earlier versions of the narrative were found to have been published more than 7 days earlier.
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