Gamification Meets Large Language Models: A Systematic Review of Applications and Challenges

Abstract

Background: The convergence of large language models (LLMs) and gamification has emerged as a promising direction for enhancing user engagement, personalisation and interaction quality across digital systems. While prior studies have largely examined LLMs or gamification in isolation, limited work has systematically explored their combined role in redefining engagement paradigms beyond static reward-based mechanisms.

Objective: This review systematically examines how LLMs are integrated into gamified systems, identifies their application contexts and functional roles and synthesises reported benefits, challenges and methodological trends across existing empirical studies.

Methods: This systematic literature review examines peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, following established systematic review protocols and the PRISMA 2020 framework. A total of 718 articles were retrieved from Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect and the ACM Digital Library. After applying predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria, 27 studies were selected for in-depth analysis. A quality assessment process was conducted to evaluate methodological rigour, consistency and reporting clarity, ensuring the reliability of the synthesis.

Results: The review identifies key application domains where LLMs are integrated into gamified systems, including intelligent non-player characters, adaptive educational feedback, persuasive gamified environments and embodied digital avatars for social and behavioural simulations. Across these contexts, LLMs were found to substantially enhance personalisation, narrative immersion and learner motivation, complementing the motivational structures of gamification. However, recurring challenges were also reported, including hallucination risks, ethical concerns in social and extended reality contexts and misalignment between LLM-driven system behaviour and user expectations.

Conclusion: This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of the opportunities, limitations and methodological trends associated with integrating LLMs into gamified environments. By consolidating evidence across diverse application domains, it offers practical and theoretical guidance for researchers, educators and system designers on responsible and effective use of LLMs to support adaptive, engaging and ethically grounded gamified systems.