Abstract
Arena Breakout is the first FPS game that allows players to interact with AI companions through natural language. Traditionally, FPS games restrict communication to simple commands like “attack” or “follow,” due to the limitations of existing input methods such as hotkeys and command wheels. These commands lack specificity, hindering players from giving complex tactical instructions like “clear the second floor” or “take cover behind that tree”.
Arena Breakout enables players to interact with an intelligent companion called F.A.C.U.L. using natural language. F.A.C.U.L. can understand complex instructions, provide feedback, and perform a series of tasks. Moreover, it can identify thousands of in-game objects, including buildings, vehicles, and collectable items, and accurately distinguish different colors and materials.
This revolutionary feature integrates advanced generative AI technologies, including voice input, LLMs, real-time text-to-speech, and image description, creating the most immersive experience for players and allowing them to work with human-like AI. F.A.C.U.L. was first presented at GDC 2025, the most important conference of the gaming industry, and later published at AAAI 2026.
About the speaker
Dr. Elvis Liu is the Head of AI at MoreFun Studios, Tencent, leading R&D in game AI, generative AI, physics simulation, and distributed virtual environments. He spearheaded the deep-reinforcement-learning sparring agents for Naruto Mobile, earning the Tencent Technology Breakthrough Award 2024, and created F.A.C.U.L., the first FPS AI companion enabling natural-language interaction with players.
Dr. Liu has over 20 years of experience spanning parallel and distributed systems, computer simulations, AI, computer graphics, and high‑performance computing. His contributions to these research areas have been acknowledged by invitations to serve on the Programme Committee of the key conferences in these research fields, including ACM SIGSIM-PADS, ACM/IEEE DS-RT, and Winter Simulation Conference. He is currently an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Games and was named an Overseas High-Level Talent by the Chinese government in 2018.
Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and an IRCSET Fellow in Ireland, where his IBM research on parallel simulation for exascale supercomputers was selected for ACM’s 19th Annual Best of Computing list, a collection of the best articles published in computing.
