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December 5, 2025

DEVBLOG / HanaCore: AI at the service of immersion

Hello everyone,

Today we’re talking about something a bit special: HanaCore, the narrative AI engine we are prototyping for Hana. This devblog is more technical than usual, but the goal remains the same: to show you how we’re trying to build an MMORPG with enough interesting and believable content, while keeping production costs and development time under control so we don’t release the game in 20 years.

Modular HanaCore interface for narrative agents
The modular HanaCore interface, with its different specialized narrative agents.

Why HanaCore?

In an MMORPG, we often think first about combat, dungeons, and loot. But a big part of the experience comes from something more subtle: NPCs, their dialogues, the quests, and the way the world reacts to your actions.

The problem is that integrating all the quests we imagine takes a huge amount of time. And as soon as we want the world to adapt even slightly to the player, whether to their level, choices, reputation, or to offer multiple resolution branches, the workload skyrockets.

So we asked ourselves a simple question:

How can we reduce the time between “the writer imagines a quest” and “the quest is playable in-game”?

HanaCore is our answer to that question.

Before getting into the technical details, here is the simple idea:

  • it is a system powered by LLMs,
  • working like a ChatGPT specialized for our game,
  • able to think, verify, refine and structure a scenario,
  • and to turn a narrative text into playable game content.

The writer provides a short text. HanaCore generates:

  • the required NPCs,
  • their dialogues,
  • the quest,
  • the objectives,
  • their validation conditions,
  • all automatically.

The goal is obviously not to replace writers with AI. The goal is simple: to stop spending our evenings manually setting up dialogues, objectives, triggers, conditions, and NPC configuration. HanaCore does not replace writing. It replaces the technical “paperwork” that comes after.

An AI engine that supports narrative design (not the other way around)

The core philosophy behind HanaCore is:

  • AI does not replace writers,
  • nor game designers,
  • nor the lore,
  • nor the artistic direction.

It is here to assist the existing work, not to replace it. What you are seeing today is what we call:

HanaCore Maturity Level 1: Text → Game Content.

But having a system capable of integrating content automatically opens the door to other possibilities. We have imagined three maturity levels, from the simplest to the most ambitious.

The three maturity levels of HanaCore

Level 1: Text → Game Content (current level)

Example of a writer prompt:

“Near the old bridge, a worried guard asks you to investigate a strange noise coming from the forest.”

From this one sentence, HanaCore can automatically generate:

  • a guard named Arthos,
  • his full dialogue with several player choices,
  • a structured quest,
  • adapted objectives,
  • a conclusion dialogue when the quest is completed.

This is the core of our prototype, and it already works.

Level 2: player actions → game content

Here, the world reacts slightly to what you do. Instead of relying only on a writer’s text, HanaCore uses your in-game actions.

For example, if you spend time fighting creatures in a swampy area, the game knows you are active in that region.

A young botanist might then approach you:

“You seem to know these swamps better than I do… Could you help me analyse another sample?”

This is not chaotic procedural content. It is based on:

  • your actions,
  • your presence in a zone,
  • the local lore.

Think of it as small, believable side quests that give life to the world.

Level 3: other players’ actions → game content

This is the level that sparks the most discussion.

Imagine:

Another player starts a quest to free imprisoned bandits in the starting village. HanaCore knows you are nearby and that, based on your past choices, your playstyle is rather honorable.

A nearby NPC might warn you:

“Someone was seen near the prison. The innkeeper recognized him; it seems to be Ricosy. He might be planning something. Could you check it out?”

Your stories begin to cross. The world feels more organic.

And if the player who triggered the event logs out, HanaCore generates a clean resolution:

“The village calmed down during the night. No one knows what happened… but thank you for looking into it.”

This Level 3 is a long-term goal, but it explains why HanaCore is built as a complete system, not as a simple AI gimmick.

How HanaCore integrates into the game

To simplify, HanaCore works like a small virtual narrative studio made of three main components.

1. The narrative database

It is the long-term memory of Hana’s world. It stores everything required to maintain coherence:

  • NPCs, locations, objects, factions,
  • existing dialogues and possible variations,
  • quests, objectives and activation conditions,
  • quest structures defined by designers,
  • player progression,
  • gameplay constraints.

Thanks to this centralized memory, an NPC cannot mention a location that does not exist, a quest cannot require an item that is not in the game, and the lore remains consistent. The AI stays bounded by the writers’ and designers’ rules.

2. The specialized agents

HanaCore uses multiple agents, each with a specific role. For example:

  • one agent structures the quest into playable steps,
  • one writes and refines dialogues,
  • one checks consistency with the lore and rules,
  • one adapts objectives to the actual gameplay,
  • one assembles everything and integrates it into the game through APIs.

They work in a chain, like a small virtual narrative team. Each agent receives an input, processes it, verifies it, and sends it to the next.

This enables:

  • automatic integration of a quest from a simple narrative text,
  • removal of many repetitive manual tasks,
  • guarantees that everything respects lore and gameplay constraints.

3. The event engine

The event engine links player activity to what HanaCore can generate. It considers:

  • your recent actions,
  • your reputation,
  • the areas where you spend time,
  • other players’ actions,
  • global server events.

This is what makes Levels 2 and 3 possible.

What does this change for you?

NPCs that seem to remember you

NPCs can adjust their dialogue based on your progression, your achievements or your reputation, while staying completely consistent with the world.

Slightly less rigid quests

We are not talking about infinite or random quests. The goal is controlled variations:

  • a slightly different objective,
  • a dialogue adjusted based on your choices,
  • a reaction triggered by your past actions.

After Hana?

HanaCore is developed first and foremost for Hana as an internal tool to speed up our narrative pipeline.

But in the long term, it could also evolve into a product used by other studios or indie developers. Three directions are already being considered:

1. A SDK for Unity and Unreal

2. A set of open APIs

  • to connect HanaCore to custom engines,
  • and expose NPCs, dialogues, quests and dynamic objectives through standardized APIs.

3. A web editor for writers

  • to create, test and organize game content without opening Unity or Unreal,
  • with persistent lore memory and simplified export tools.

This is not our immediate priority, but it is a direction that could become interesting later on.

Conclusion

HanaCore may remain an internal tool for our game designers. Or it may become a key technical component that helps Hana stand out.

In any case, we move forward step by step. We test. We iterate. We listen to your feedback. And we keep what truly works.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to join the discussion on Discord. Levels 2 and 3 will likely spark some interesting debates.

See you soon,
LordEden