mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Agentic Game Development as a Verifiable Trajectory Data Engine for Scaling World Models

arXiv 2608.25518 ↗First posted 26 Aug 2026cs.AIcited by 3

On the map: World models → Video-generation world models and simulators

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

A common strategy for scaling world models is to train on more crawled video with more compute. We argue that this strategy is inefficient: scaling world models also requires a recursive data engine that offers grounded reward signals. The success of code agents illustrates why this matters. As code is executable, compilers and runtimes can provide high-quality rewards for Reinforcement Learning (RL) post-training of LLMs. By contrast, spatial generation still relies largely on fuzzy proxies such as CLIP scores. These signals are fuzzy and biased, making them hard to support RL post-training. Compared with these, game development provides a missing reward environment for spatial world models. A scene encoded by a game engine is an executable world specification: the engine can efficiently check collision, physics, navigability and bounded playability, while the developer provides the global verification signal by judging whether the scene should be accepted. Game development also provides real-world long-horizon trajectory data for RL post-training. We therefore propose Reinforcement Learning with Human-Engine Verification (RLHEV), a post-training paradigm that combines dense engine signals with implicit human acceptance feedback from the development process.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Video-generation world models and simulators, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 74 of its 92 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Aug 2026.

Builds on

74 of 92 references.

Closest ancestors · 11

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026Cosmos 3: Omnimodal World Models for Physical AI1 Jun
  2. 2026VoxelCodeBench: Benchmarking 3D World Modeling Through Code Generation2 Apr
  3. 20254DWorldBench: A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework for 3D/4D World Generation Models25 Nov
  4. 2025GameFactory: Creating New Games with Generative Interactive Videos14 Jan
  5. 2024GameGen-X: Interactive Open-world Game Video Generation1 Nov
  6. 2024WorldSimBench: Towards Video Generation Models as World Simulators23 Oct
  7. 2024Diffusion Models Are Real-Time Game Engines27 Aug
  8. 2024Genie: Generative Interactive Environments23 Feb
  9. 2023Learning Interactive Real-World Simulators9 Oct
  10. 2022DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion29 Sep
  11. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision26 Feb

Other references · 63

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  2. 20233D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Renderingcited by 6,226
  3. 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,789
  4. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,191
  5. 2023VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Modelscited by 1,822
  6. 2024SWE-agent: Agent-Computer Interfaces Enable Automated Software Engineeringcited by 1,737
  7. 2022Objaverse: A Universe of Annotated 3D Objectscited by 1,540
  8. 2017Domain Randomization for Transferring Deep Neural Networks from Simulation to the Real Worldcited by 1,498
  9. 2022Competition-Level Code Generation with AlphaCodecited by 1,462
  10. 2020D4RL: Datasets for Deep Data-Driven Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,427
  11. 2018Towards Accurate Generative Models of Video: A New Metric & Challengescited by 1,234
  12. 2019Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Researchcited by 1,191
38 more
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  4. 2021Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learningcited by 998
  5. 2024Chameleon: Mixed-Modal Early-Fusion Foundation Modelscited by 927
  6. 2025Janus-Pro: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation with Data and Model Scalingcited by 812
  7. 2018Recurrent World Models Facilitate Policy Evolutioncited by 785
  8. 2023Objaverse-XL: A Universe of 10M+ 3D Objectscited by 774
  9. 2022Point-E: A System for Generating 3D Point Clouds from Complex Promptscited by 699
  10. 2019Leveraging Procedural Generation to Benchmark Reinforcement Learningcited by 483
  11. 2024Transfusion: Predict the Next Token and Diffuse Images with One Multi-Modal Modelcited by 483
  12. 2022MineDojo: Building Open-Ended Embodied Agents with Internet-Scale Knowledgecited by 478
  13. 2024Janus: Decoupling Visual Encoding for Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 457
  14. 2022Unified-IO: A Unified Model for Vision, Language, and Multi-Modal Taskscited by 421
  15. 2024MLLM-as-a-Judge: Assessing Multimodal LLM-as-a-Judge with Vision-Language Benchmarkcited by 372
  16. 2025Improving Video Generation with Human Feedbackcited by 284
  17. 2020Emergent Complexity and Zero-shot Transfer via Unsupervised Environment Designcited by 275
  18. 2018Unity: A General Platform for Intelligent Agentscited by 236
  19. 2025Video models are zero-shot learners and reasonerscited by 220
  20. 2022Think Global, Act Local: Dual-scale Graph Transformer for Vision-and-Language Navigationcited by 193
  21. 2026Seedance 2.0: Advancing Video Generation for World Complexitycited by 160
  22. 2024iVideoGPT: Interactive VideoGPTs are Scalable World Modelscited by 146
  23. 2024BALROG: Benchmarking Agentic LLM and VLM Reasoning On Gamescited by 146
  24. 2017Procedural Content Generation via Machine Learning (PCGML)cited by 137
  25. 2025REASONING GYM: Reasoning Environments for Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewardscited by 130
  26. 2024A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Game Agentscited by 112
  27. 2024WorldCoder, a Model-Based LLM Agent: Building World Models by Writing Code and Interacting with the Environmentcited by 107
  28. 2019Increasing Generality in Machine Learning through Procedural Content Generationcited by 59
  29. 2025A Survey on Large Language Models for Mathematical Reasoningcited by 52
  30. 2026SAGE: Scalable Agentic 3D Scene Generation for Embodied AIcited by 50
  31. 2025RLVR-World: Training World Models with Reinforcement Learningcited by 40
  32. 2025Game-RL: Synthesizing Multimodal Verifiable Game Data to Boost VLMs' General Reasoningcited by 32
  33. 2026LoL: Longer than Longer, Scaling Video Generation to Hourcited by 32
  34. 2026GameDevBench: Evaluating Agentic Capabilities Through Game Developmentcited by 28
  35. 2026GameWorld: Towards Standardized and Verifiable Evaluation of Multimodal Game Agentscited by 28
  36. 20183D-Aware Scene Manipulation via Inverse Graphicscited by 24
  37. 2025UniLat3D: Geometry-Appearance Unified Latents for Single-Stage 3D Generationcited by 20
  38. 2026Code2Worlds: Empowering Coding LLMs for 4D World Generationcited by 19

50 most cited of 63 All 63 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Reward as An Agent for Embodied World Models
  2. 2026Multiplayer Interactive World Models with Representation Autoencoders
  3. 2026AgentGarten: Code Worlds for Evolving Agents
  4. 2026Code2Games: Enabling Coding Agents for Gaming World Generation
  5. 2024Scaling Offline Model-Based RL via Jointly-Optimized World-Action Model Pretraining
  6. 2026Mind-Studio: Executable World Models with Lookahead Evaluation for Partially Observable Games
  7. 2025Model as a Game: On Numerical and Spatial Consistency for Generative Games
  8. 2024PCGRL+: Scaling, Control and Generalization in Reinforcement Learning Level Generators