My whole life, I had one passion: gaming and its relation to the technology tools it uses. Among the changes that occurred in years we are able to mention the addition of artificial intelligence to the games. This means that ‘AI’ is not just lip service; it is the real game-changer in every sense of the word. In this post I will discuss on how AI is revolutionizing the field of gaming and making games smarter and very much engaging.
Smarter Non-Player Characters (NPCs)
Another of the most obvious changes, which affect modern games thanks to AI, is the ability to create intelligent and thoughtful opponents. Do you recall when characters in the game only rode in linear fashion or always performed the same actions by a script? Such days are now things of the past. NPCs are capable of learning from the players’ action, the strategies they use, thus created NPCs that are intelligent and much harder to beat. For example in the game The Last of Us Part II the opponents are intelligent as they work together in order to overcome the player, or more accurately, the main character.
Procedural Content Generation
It is also being applied in procedural content generation, a method that facilitates the concept of creating a gigantic and diverse game landscape and does not have to build every single element manually. It is random in the generation of values for levels, landscapes, and missions so outcomes of a game differ even for subsequent plays. This is well illustrated by games such as the No Man’s Sky in which AI create planet, ecosystems, quests among others. This not only increases the multiple play potential, but also greatly reduces the time of development and money spent.
Enhancing Game Personalization
One can say that personalization is in his infancy in gaming, and AI leads the way in this aspect. AI can track players’ behavior, their preferences, and even their competency to be able to provide every player with the best possible experience. It can involve such things as changing the level of difficulty, suggesting buying in-game items, or changing the plot of the game according to the actions of the player. For instance, in the games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, every action made by the player results in the game world and characters’ response, thus each game is a unique story.
Creating Immersive Virtual Worlds
The last was possible due to the efficiency that AI was able to mimic the real world, thereby creating a relatively realistic environment for the game. It is employed in realistic modeling of many phenomena, including simulated meteorology or star-ship’s crew behavior, to make virtual environments ‘responsive’ to the gamer. This concerns open world games such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt where AI governs the behaviour of numerous Non-playable characters, animals and objects that make the environment respond to the actions of the player as if the game were scripted. It allows players to get involved with the game to the highest level of participation, therefore making the game more interesting and exciting.
AI in the Coming Future
AI has a great potential as for the gaming industry in the future. Thus, the development of new AI technologies should continue, and people expect more effective and smart systems to improve the possibilities in the sphere of games. It can range from completely autonomous NPCs which can develop over the course of the gameplay to storylines which change in response to players’ actions in real time. Furthermore, AI could be a major part of VR and AR; making us experience that which is not possible in reality.
AI has been incorporated in games and has helped created better and intelligent NPCs, created worlds, and given players personal and realistic gaming worlds. From a gaming perspective, it plays a role to envision what more might happen in the future and how AI is going to bring more changes on the gaming industry.