Neocortex

Neocortex is a platform for building smart agents, interactive worlds, and actions, with visual tools and game-engine connections. Its web editor lets users shape character personalities, conversation flows, and world behavior; a node-based editor defines character capabilities and interaction rules. Listed capabilities include action systems, spatial awareness, knowledge bases, emotional responses, and multilingual communication. Neocortex is presented for smart NPCs, AI companions, virtual assistants, VR, voice-controlled games, education and training, and interactive storytelling. SDKs are listed for Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot, alongside a Web API that supports chat, streaming chat, session history, speech, transcription, quizzes, account and usage information, and character listing. Platforms include Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, and Windows, with API and self-hosted options. A free plan allows personal use; Starter is €9 a month, billed Billed €108 yearly, for personal and academic use. Pro and Team plans allow commercial use. The Unity SDK quick start requires a Neocortex account, Unity 6 (6000.0) or above, and Git. The company is headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia.

Neocortex combines character-building editors with SDKs and API capabilities for interactive projects. Check plan usage terms and the Unity setup requirements before choosing a workflow.

Neocortex may suit game developers, educators, and creators building interactive characters or worlds. Its plans distinguish personal and academic use from commercial use.

Neocortex is a character-authoring and integration platform for interactive software, best suited to developers building behavior-rich game or training experiences. Its strongest case is the combination of visual tools and engine-facing APIs; its main trade-off is that credits, project caps, and commercial-use rules vary sharply by plan.

Overview

The browser-based editor brings character personalities, conversation flows, and world dynamics into one workflow. A node-based editor lets creators define character traits and rules for interactions with other characters and environments, making it useful when behavior design is central to a project rather than an afterthought.

Neocortex is aimed at smart NPCs, AI companions, virtual assistants, VR, voice-controlled games, education and training, and interactive storytelling. Its character systems include actions, spatial awareness, knowledge bases, emotional responses, and multilingual communication. That breadth is more relevant to interactive experiences than to a project needing only conventional voiceover or text-to-speech.

Key features

• Visual behavior authoring: The web editor supports personalities, conversation flows, and world dynamics, while node-based rules govern character and environment interactions. This offers a visual route to shaping behavior, but plan caps on characters and flows can limit the number of projects or scenarios a team can maintain.
• Engine and API integration: SDKs are provided for Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot, alongside a Web API usable from any engine or platform. The API covers chat and streaming chat, session history, speech and streaming speech, transcription, quizzes, account and usage information, and character listing.
• Unity setup: The Unity quick start requires a Neocortex account, Unity 6 (6000.0) or above, and Git. That makes the Unity route a fit for projects already using a recent Unity release and Git, but not a drop-in choice for older Unity setups.
• Privacy controls: The privacy policy describes access controls and encryption, including encrypted transmission routes for particularly sensitive personal data. It also describes rights to access, correct, delete, object to, restrict, or port data, and withdraw consent where applicable. Data may be processed or stored worldwide; safeguards such as EU standard contractual clauses are described for certain transfers.

Pricing

Neocortex uses a freemium model. The Free plan costs nothing and includes 2 characters, 2 conversation flows, 200 monthly credits, 1 API key, 1 knowledge base file upload, personal use, and community support. It is a sensible way to explore the editor, but the low quotas and personal-use restriction rule it out for commercial deployment.

Starter costs €9 a month (billed Billed €108 yearly). It raises the limits to 5 characters, 5 flows, 2,000 monthly credits, 3 API keys, and 5 knowledge base uploads, with personal and academic use and email support. It suits small personal or academic work; it still does not permit commercial use.

Pro costs €29 a month (billed Billed €348 yearly). It includes 20 characters and flows, 10,000 monthly credits, multi-NPC group chat, 10 API keys, 20 knowledge base uploads, and 5 custom voices, with commercial use and email support. For a solo commercial creator or small project, this is the first tier that supports commercial use, though monthly credits and asset counts remain bounded.

Team costs €99 a month (billed Billed €1188 yearly). It adds 5 team member seats, 100 characters and flows, 40,000 monthly credits, multi-NPC group chat, 50 API keys, 100 knowledge base uploads, and 20 custom voices, with commercial use and priority support. The extra capacity and seats make it the clearer fit for a small production team, but the five-seat limit matters for larger groups.

Custom pricing applies to unlimited characters and usage, custom software and app development, feature roadmap and SDK customization, enterprise data ownership and compliance, self-hosted and private infrastructure deployment, and dedicated partnership with priority support. It is the option for organizations needing those enterprise or deployment terms rather than fixed quotas.

Platforms

Neocortex supports Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, and web, as well as API access and self-hosted deployment. The SDK lineup covers Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot.

Who it's for

Neocortex is a strong fit for game developers and interactive-content teams that need authored character behavior, multiple interaction systems, and engine integration. Education and training projects, VR, voice-controlled games, and interactive stories also align with its stated use cases. It is a weaker fit for simple voice generation, for commercial users unwilling to move beyond Free or Starter, or for teams whose credit and character needs exceed their tier.

Pros and cons

• Pro: Visual and node-based editing combine character traits, flows, and interaction rules, supporting behavior-focused creation.
• Pro: Unity, Unreal, and Godot SDKs plus a cross-platform Web API offer several integration paths.
• Pro: Pro and Team include commercial use, group chat, and custom voices, with higher quotas at Team.
• Con: Free and Starter are restricted to personal or academic use, so paid commercial work starts at Pro for €29 a month.
• Con: Monthly credits, characters, flows, API keys, and knowledge-base uploads are capped on the fixed tiers, and Team is limited to 5 seats.
• Con: Unity integration requires Unity 6 (6000.0) or above and Git, which excludes older Unity workflows that cannot meet those requirements.

Alternatives

For a broader game-voice-generator shortlist, see Game Voice Generators. Consider Adobe Firefly for a freemium option with a free plan and Android, API, iOS, and web platforms. Convai is another freemium option with a free plan and Android, API, iOS, and web support; its Free plan includes a 100/month interaction quota, 60 minutes of cloud-rendered Avatar Studio and Convai Sim, and one character session concurrency.

Resemble AI is worth considering for a paid voice-focused workflow: it has a free plan and trial, supports a broad range of platforms including self-hosted, and its Flex plan has one team seat with pay-as-you-go credits that never expire. For general text-to-speech, Speechify has a freemium plan across mobile, web, and desktop; its Free tier includes 10 voices and a 1.5x maximum speed.

Acapela Group is a paid alternative without a free plan, with a yearly subscription priced at €99 a year, excluding VAT. ReadSpeaker is another paid option, offering individual non-institutional subscriptions at custom pricing. For API-based speech synthesis, Google Cloud Text-to-Speech is a paid service with a free trial; Standard voices include 0 to 4 million characters free, then cost US$0.000004 per character (US$4 per 1 million characters). For game localization rather than character authoring, Algebras AI Game Localization Agent has a freemium plan with a free 0–1k words tier and a Standard tier at $15 a month.

Verdict

Choose Neocortex if you need to create interactive characters and connect their behavior to a game engine or service; the editor, SDKs, and API make that combination its central advantage. Look elsewhere if your work is primarily voice generation, if you need commercial use below Pro, or if fixed monthly quotas do not fit your scale.