A Systematic Review of AI-Driven Game Design and User Experience Research
Keywords:
artificial intelligence, game design, user experience, dynamic adjustment, personalization
Abstract
In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been increasingly integrated into game design, driving innovation that extend from development efficiency to user experience. This study systematically reviewed the research on user experience in AI-driven game design published between 2020 to April 2025, analyzing 74 studies retrieved ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore and Web of Science. Findings indicate that AI has been incorporated into all stages of game design, enabling collaborative development and facilitating personalized content adaptation and real-time player interaction through dynamic difficulty adjustment, affective computing, and generative technologies. The integration of multimodal technologies further enhances immersion and engagement. In cross-domain applications, AI-driven serious games demonstrate strong potential in fileds such as education and healthcare. Nevertheless, challenges remain in terms of technology integration complexity and insufficient interdisciplinary validation. Future research should establish standardized evaluation frameworks to advance game design from entertainment-focused application toward broader social demands including education and health care.
References
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Gupta, S., Nancy, N., Saw, P. K., Raj, A., Kumar, A., & Agrawal, K. (2024). Developing game AI for classic games using reinforcement learning. In 2024 IEEE 1st International Conference on Green Industrial Electronics and Sustainable Technologies (GIEST) (pp. 1–7). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/GIEST62955.2024.10960023
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Hany, N., Sherif, R., Emad, K., Emad, A., Elsayed, M., & Abdelrahman, H. (2024). Nexia tutor: An AI-powered language personalized learning system for kids with dyslexia and reading challenges. In 2024 International Mobile, Intelligent, and Ubiquitous Computing Conference (MIUCC) (pp. 98–103). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/MIUCC62295.2024.10783640
Hassan, S. Z., Salehi, P., Røed, R. K., Halvorsen, P., Baugerud, G. A., Johnson, M. S., Lison, P., Riegler, M., Lamb, M. E., Griwodz, C., & Sabet, S. S. (2022). Towards an AI-driven talking avatar in virtual reality for investigative interviews of children. In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Games Systems (pp. 9–15). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3534085.3534340
Hong, Y., & Ge, Y. (2022). Design and analysis of clothing catwalks taking into account unity’s immersive virtual reality in an artificial intelligence environment. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, 2022, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2861767
Huynh, V.-T., Nguyen, T. V., & Tran, M.-T. (2023). Sketch2Reality: Immersive 3D indoor scene synthesis via sketches. In Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Information and Communication Technology (pp. 863–869). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3628797.3628991
International Olympic Committee. (n.d.). Olympic Esports Games. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://www.olympics.com/ioc/olympic-esports-games
Kawai, Y. (2024). Using generative AI for game development subject to technical constraints. In 2024 International Conference on Cyberworlds (CW) (pp. 376–377). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CW64301.2024.00081
Kim, M., Lee, K., Balan, R., & Lee, Y. (2023). Bubbleu: Exploring augmented reality game design with uncertain AI-based interaction. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–18). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581270
Lankes, M., & Stöckl, A. (2023). Game reviews reviewed: A game designer’s perspective on AI-generated game review analyses. In 2023 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) (pp. 1–8). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG57401.2023.10333238
Li, H.-H., Lian, J.-J., & Liao, Y.-H. (2023). Design an adaptive virtual reality game to promote elderly health. In 2023 International Conference on Computer, Information and Telecommunication Systems (CITS) (pp. 1–7). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CITS58301.2023.10188784
Liu, H., Choi, M., Kao, D., & Mousas, C. (2023). Synthesizing game levels for collaborative gameplay in a shared virtual environment. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 13(1), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.1145/3558773
Liu, X., Lau, N., Chuin, A., Leung, W. K. R., Ho, A. H. S., Das, M., Liu, M., & Kwok, C. L. (2023). Understanding students’ perspectives, practices, and challenges of designing with AI in special schools. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International Symposium of Chinese CHI (pp. 197–209). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3629606.3629625
Lulle, K., Agrawal, P., Amrutwar, M., & Khiani, S. (2024). An AI-powered application to enhance cognitive health and provide caregiver support for dementia patients. In 2024 4th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Intelligent Information Systems (ICUIS) (pp. 93–98). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUIS64676.2024.10866122
Mieschke, P., & Radicke, S. (2023). Adaptive LLM-based game radio (ALGR). In 2023 4th International Conference on Computers and Artificial Intelligence Technology (CAIT) (pp. 277–283). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CAIT59945.2023.10469093
Moon, J., Choi, Y., Park, T., Choi, J., Hong, J.-H., & Kim, K.-J. (2022). Diversifying dynamic difficulty adjustment agent by integrating player state models into monte-carlo tree search. Expert Systems with Applications, 205, 117677. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2022.117677
Prithul, A., Lynam, H., & Folmer, E. (2024). Performance and navigation behavior of using teleportation in VR first-person shooter games. Games: Research and Practice, 2(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3661133
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Published
2025-08-29
How to Cite
Lao, Q. (2025, August 29). A Systematic Review of AI-Driven Game Design and User Experience Research. Humanities and Social Science Research, 8(4), p229. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.30560/hssr.v8n4p229
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