LLM-Integrated VR NPCs to Support Social Presence and Engagement in a Viking Museum

Supporting museum engagement and learning opportunities for a younger audience requires the adaptation of modern technologies and more diverse ways of communicating information and stories. This study explores the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) as non-playable character (NPC) guides into Virtual Reality (VR) to enhance social presence and learning engagement in historical contexts. Collaborating with the Lindholm Høje Viking Museum in Denmark, we developed a VR experience featuring context-aware LLM-integrated digital social actors portraying prehistoric Vikings. Three interactive experiences are designed around the exhibitions present in the museum. Through a comparison with a traditional finite-state dialogue version, our findings suggest an overall increase in user presence and engagement when interacting with LLM-integrated NPCs.