The stakes in reality television are about to be raised. The latest series, described by its creators as a cross between The Hunger Games, Traitors and The Truman Show, features six super-fit contestants parachuted into remote locations for a fight to the death and a huge cash prize.
In one shocking scene, a contestant toys with another by peppering them with gunshots, while others fend off a venomous snake and a polar bear.
“Whoever wins this is never going to be the same,” predicts Eliza Cole, a contestant who has been released from a prison sentence for murder, in a trailer for the show.
Eliza Cole, player five, is a murderer in the pursuit of redemption
The catch is that the entire series has been produced using artificial intelligence.
Non Player Combat is the brainchild of Tom Paton, a former horror film director and visual effects producer, who is confident that young audiences are ready for a reality show created entirely using computers.
“This particular audience is already OK with characters not being real,” Paton, 40, said. “The question is, do you actually care that it’s AI if you’re entertained? That’s all that counts.”
He pointed to the millions watching other people play video games on the streaming service Twitch, as well as the success of CGI films such as Avatar, as evidence that 18 to 35-year-olds are happy to become invested in digital characters.
Paton’s company, AiMation, has created six characters including Travis Drake, a former Navy Seal, Micah Gray, a wilderness coach, and the guilt-ridden Cole.
Micah Gray, player four, is a wilderness coach
The contestants were “trained” using hundreds of pages of detailed back stories with facts about where they went to school, who they fell in love with, their favourite food and what tragedies they have faced.
They have human vulnerabilities and are susceptible to disease, wild animals, poison and the need to eat and drink to stay alive.
As well as crafting the characters, AI was also given editorial control of the show. Its decisions resulted in the contestants facing “biblical” weather conditions in remote locations including jungles, deserts and mountains.
Madison Cross, player three, is a survival trainer and adventure content creator
The show is being released weekly on YouTube from Monday after producers distilled four weeks’ worth of footage, created in four days, to four episodes.
It cost less than £30,000 to produce, compared with the multimillion-pound budgets required by the likes The Traitors on BBC1 and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here on ITV.
AI content has drawn the ire of Hollywood A-listers including Kate Winslet and Guillermo Del Toro, but Paton said that such a stance was effectively elitist.
“Someone like Guillermo Del Toro yelling ‘f*** AI’ is not only eye-rolling, it’s gatekeeping,” he said.
“Media has always diversified. Cinema didn’t kill TV. TV didn’t kill home video. Streaming didn’t kill cinema. Some people still swear vinyl sounds better, but that doesn’t mean Spotify shouldn’t exist.”
The first two episodes of the show are available on YouTube and the others will be released on December 15 and 22
He said there had been interest from British broadcasters about airing Non Player Combat, as well as wider partnership opportunities.
Steven D Wright, a television producer, said the rise of AI reality series was “inevitable”.
He noted the way in which audiences had taken computer game characters such as Lara Croft from Tomb Raider to their hearts as they have become more realistic.
“We have already had Channel 4’s Dispatches using AI presenters and are becoming so used to fake videos on TikTok and YouTube that it seems impossible to stop,” he said.
“If you work in TV then it’s a terrible thing, but as a viewer the only question is, are you entertained? We have an innate ability to believe in made-up characters. Cartoon, CGI, AI — it’s all just storytelling.”
Non Player Combat’s characters contend with extreme terrain and weather conditions on a remote island
In September Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated actress, caused controversy after her creator claimed Hollywood agents were interested in signing her up.
Eline van der Velden, founder of Particle6, said she was open to Norwood starring in a future series of Non Player Combat.
She said: “People are becoming more and more receptive to AI, realising that it is all part of a new creative renaissance that can and will transform entertainment.
“Significantly, there is also much greater recognition of the skill, time and effort taken to create something that looks this good.”