Petit Planet’s AI Chatbots Have Cozy Fans Fighting Over the Off Switch

HoYoverse wanted Petit Planet players to sit down for a quiet coffee. Instead, its virtual barista has them arguing about who should write game dialogue, what happens to their chat logs and whether a cozy game needs a chatbot in the first place. Nalo might be the only café worker in the Starsea whose small talk comes with a settings menu.

The argument has followed Petit Planet out of its final beta and into the run-up to its December 4 launch. Some players want the AI gone. Others found the characters charming or were happy to switch them off and get back to their gardens. The fight is over how much of the game you should have to opt out of to get the quiet little planet you signed up for. Petit Planet launch page

The barista was only the beginning

Nalo chats with visitors at Cafe Untamed in the Galactic Bazaar, the multiplayer hub where players can also hang out with actual people. The beta had more than one conversational character. Goodman could approach players for interviews or photos, and testers also discussed AI-assisted games and a help chatbot for questions about mechanics. A café novelty is one thing. Encountering AI in the plaza and in a help menu makes it harder to shrug off as one eccentric barista.

The same r/PetitPlanet discussion has players writing off Goodman’s interruptions and others defending him as an endearing photographer who remembered what they liked. The help bot has a clearer pitch: ask where to find something and get an answer without leaving the game. That sounds useful right up until you ask why finding it needed a conversation in the first place.

Cozy fans are arguing about more than coffee

Critics want characters with a distinct voice and conversations someone thought worth writing. For them, the appeal of a little town is getting attached to its residents, quirks and all. A chatbot can keep talking indefinitely. That’s only a selling point if you want to hear what it says next.

Defenders see the appeal of a side character who can respond to your outfit, your jokes or whatever you said the last time you came in. Even a final beta reviewer who disliked generative AI found the characters surprisingly immersive. For that camp, a scripted greeting can get old faster than an improvised exchange. Final beta player review

Then there’s the environmental argument. Players who already question the energy cost of generative AI see a strange fit with a game about tending a living planet. The debate has no game-specific numbers to settle it. The objection is simpler anyway. How much computing should a game spend on a little small talk?

Can you turn off the AI in Petit Planet?

In the final beta, Settings > Account had an Allow AI NPC Interaction switch. HoYoverse said turning it off would stop Nalo, Goodman and Riffe from approaching players to start conversations. There was a separate setting for whether text from AI interactions could be used for model training. One controls who comes over to talk. The other is about what can be done with what you type. Final beta feature notes

Some testers reported playing comfortably with AI NPC interactions off. Another reported finding the settings re-enabled during testing, with the cause unclear. That’s the sort of thing players will want to check in the release build. HoYoverse also offered a separate choice about carrying Nalo’s memories forward when the test ended. Official final beta closing notice

Will anyone actually walk away?

For players who object to the technology on principle, an off switch won’t settle the argument. For everyone who just wants to fish, decorate or figure out which neighbor to invite next, the practical test is whether those activities feel complete with the chatter switched off. Gopode’s creature catalogue and Neighbor directory already give you plenty to plan away from the café.

A fight on Reddit can’t tell us what December 4 will look like. It can tell HoYoverse where players will be looking. The people who wanted a quiet life among the stars may end up spending their first five minutes in Account Settings.