Best AI NPC and dialogue platforms for games (2026)
Picks based only on what each vendor's own pricing and terms pages say (checked 2026-10-15): can you ship it, what it costs, and whether your agent can call it. We don't rank by output quality.
Output assigned to you, commercial licence on the free tier
Inworld's terms assign Outputs to you and its pricing lists a commercial license on the free On-Demand plan; usage is billed per model/TTS call.
Plan limits that matter once you ship
Convai's Terms (Sep 1, 2025) give you ownership of AI-generated content on every plan, but plans cap monthly active end users (the free plan allows 1), which limits how many players a shipped game can serve.
Engine SDKs
Convai documents a Unity SDK (Package Manager or Asset Store) and an Unreal Engine 5 plugin. Inworld's Unreal AI Runtime SDK is live and its Unity SDK was in early access (Inworld blog, Oct 29, 2025).
Store rules for runtime AI
Steam asks you to describe guardrails for live-generated AI; Microsoft Store/Xbox policy 11.16 requires metadata disclosure and an in-product report path. See the platform AI rules guide.
All tracked options
| Tool | Free tier | Paid price (as shown) | Commercial licence | API / MCP | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inworld AI NPC & runtime AI | On-Demand: $0, pay as you go; up to 70 min TTS included, 100 custom voices, 2 professional voice clones; 'Commercial license' listed | Creator $25/mo ($25 credits); Builder $100/mo; Developer $300/mo; Growth $1,500/mo; Enterprise custom. TTS-2 $25/1M chars on On-Demand, down to $12.50 on Growth; STT $0.15/hr; LLM inference from $0.07/1M tokens | Free: Pricing page lists 'Commercial license' on the free On-Demand tier; Terms (effective Jun 11, 2025): 'we assign to you all of our right, title, and interest in Outputs' Paid: Same Terms assignment on every plan | API (TTS, STT, speech-to-speech, LLM router) | 2026-10-15 price: verified licence: verified |
| Convai NPC & runtime AI | Free: 100 interactions/month, 60 cloud-rendered minutes, 1 character session, 1 monthly active end user | Indie Dev $29/mo ($22/mo billed yearly, 3,000 interactions, 75 MAU); Professional $99/mo ($69, 10,000, 250 MAU); Scale $499/mo ($299, 50,000, 1,250 MAU); Business $1,199/mo ($499 yearly 'limited time offer', 125,000, 2,500 MAU); Enterprise custom | Free: Terms of Service (last updated Sep 1, 2025) s.3: 'You shall have ownership over the Customer Content and AI Generated Content at all times.' Not limited by plan Paid: Same Terms s.3 ownership clause on every plan | API keys and SDKs; Vision ability via APIs on all plans | 2026-10-15 price: verified licence: verified |
Compare cost per asset in the calculator · Commercial-use answers · Ship with no attribution
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