Ever wanted the game to just... do the hard part for you? Sony has quietly sketched out a future where that’s possible. Patent filings published this week describe an "AI Generated Ghost Player" — an in-game assistant that can either demonstrate how to clear a tricky puzzle or outright finish the sequence for you.
The filing, originally submitted in 2024 and recently surfaced in an international status report, lays out a system that watches your live game state, spins up an AI engine, and renders a ghostly version of your character as an overlay. That ghost can perform inputs in real time to show you the solution, or take over and complete the encounter if you choose.
Two ways to get help
Sony’s document frames the feature as flexible. Players could summon a "Guide Mode," where a ghost demonstrates the correct sequence — imagine Nathan Drake showing how to realign a lever in Uncharted — and then you replicate the actions yourself. Or they could use a "Complete Mode," which finishes the section for you so you keep moving.
The patent emphasises the assistance is context-aware: the model would process the current game state rather than playing back a fixed developer demo. In other words, the ghost isn’t a canned video — it’s an AI controlling the same character model and inputs used by the player.
Why does that matter? Because it’s a different beast to the PS5’s existing Game Help cards, which supply hints, screenshots and short clips when developers opt in. This would be a generative system acting directly inside the live session.
Convenience vs. agency
There are obvious upsides. Newer or casual players stuck on a puzzle or boss could avoid frustration without alt‑tabbing across devices or scouring walkthroughs. Trophies and completionists might appreciate a faster path when one sequence blocks progress. Some fans already praise in‑console help for keeping you in the flow, and a live, adaptive tutor could extend that convenience.
But not everyone is thrilled. Critics argue that letting an AI finish gameplay risks hollowing out the satisfaction of solving a challenge. There’s also the awkward middle ground where companions and systems already hand out answers too soon — something players complained about in titles where NPC allies practically announce the solution.
And then there’s the privacy and data angle. The patent suggests the model could be trained on existing footage of the game and could harvest session data to be effective — a prospect that raises questions about what gets stored and how player activity is used.
If you want to read where Sony has been testing responsible AI internally, the company’s FHIBE benchmark shows they’re at least thinking about consent and bias in vision systems, which could inform how any in‑game assistant behaves and what data it uses (Sony’s FHIBE benchmark).
This isn’t a finished product — but it fits a bigger trend
Patents are blueprints, not promises. Sony files technology proposals all the time, and many never make it into consumer hardware. Still, the idea lines up with the wider industry movement toward AI helpers: Microsoft has been pushing Copilot-style gaming features and new generative models of its own (Microsoft’s MAI-Image-1 is one example of vendors building proprietary AI tools aimed at creators and apps).
If Sony did ship something like this, it could pair naturally with cloud and streaming advances that already let you move play sessions around — a capability the company recently expanded for the PlayStation Portal, which now streams PS5 libraries more widely (PlayStation Portal’s streaming update). Imagine pulling a demo ghost from the cloud into your active session.
What to watch for
Practical questions remain. How will developers opt in (or out)? Will ghosts respect speed‑running or trophy rules? Can the AI be trained without harvesting personally identifiable player traces? The patent hints at natural‑language queries and selectable modes, but the safeguards and UX details will determine whether players treat this as a helpful tutor or a cheat engine in nicer clothes.
Also worth noting: some parts of the discussion online have been sensational — talk of entire games being "played for you" misses the nuance the patent suggests. The system is pitched primarily as assistance; whether Sony turns it into a default shortcut or an optional novelty is still unknown.
Sony’s filing is a snapshot of one company’s thinking about player support in an era of capable generative models. It doesn’t answer whether those models should be used that way — only that the capability is being explored. For now, the controller still belongs to you.
If you’re curious about related hardware as these features evolve, the PS5 Pro remains the baseline many will compare future consoles to.