Several major Chinese internet companies are actively creating artificial intelligence-based tools for interactive cinematic games—a genre characterized by branching, playable video stories. According to a report from Chinese media published on October 11, these companies aim to capture the entry point for content creators, which could potentially become a mass production format.
On September 20, the editor of ByteDance's video division, CapCut, introduced its version for China—ICG Studio. This platform for creating interactive cinematic games is currently in closed beta testing. Creators begin with a story synopsis, after which the script, recurring characters, scene assets, and props are generated, along with storyboards. By communicating with an agent, they can branch the plot at any decision point and create new storyboard frames, allowing for the reuse of characters and decorations across different storylines.
Tencent has four products developed by different teams. TDream is positioned as a set of AI engines for cinematic game worlds that transform scripts into videos and add choice options. In May, the LightSpeed Studios platform was launched, which breaks down the process of creating an interactive story into six standardized steps for non-professional users. Furthermore, at the SPARK 2026 event, Tencent demonstrated the Project Craft platform, which generates 2D and 3D game prototypes based on text descriptions. There is also the DreamNow platform, designed for showcasing and discovering AI videos, images, and interactive works.
Kuaishou announced in July plans to implement AI-powered interactive content creation features. Although projects like The Invisible Guardian and Love Is All Around have shown audience interest in this genre, high production costs limited the number of quality releases. Developers note that AI is already helping to reduce expenses. One game producer reported that the cost of character art, previously 2,000 yuan per image, now approaches 800 yuan with AI assistance, and the budget for a small game of 200,000 yuan could decrease to approximately 150,000 yuan.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Interactive scenarios are significantly longer than short drama scripts, and AI is not yet capable of writing them qualitatively. The proposed data feedback mechanism, where each player's choice teaches better storylines, remains unproven because it is difficult to determine the reasons behind every click. The genre also suffers from a lack of specialized distribution channels; most works are still sold as individual games on platforms like Steam, and it is unclear whether AI-created titles will require a game publishing license.
Currently, the tools for professional creators appear to be the most promising, which explains the race among platforms to provide such solutions.