What is AI in gaming? 

AI (Artificial Intelligence) has believed it or not, existed in gaming for a very long time. It’s shown in the old school classic from 1980, Pacman. If you’ve ever played it, you’ll know what we mean. As Pacman moves around the screen collecting all of the dots, he is ruthlessly chased by four different coloured ghosts. Those ghosts try to ambush the player by using AI,they are programmed to know Pacman’s location but each one of them is set to respond a little differently to it. The different behaviours make them look like they have a mind of their own, and that’s exactly what AI aims to do.

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Why does AI matter?

Bringing you forward to 2023, AI is leading to new and exciting possibilities in gaming and nearly all games now use AI to some extent. In the modern day its goal is to immerse the player as much as possible, giving the other non-playing characters in the game life like qualities so that the game feels more real. AI matters because it enters the game into a new realm, allowing you to interact with the other non-playing characters as if in real life, experience multiple different storylines at once, where your enemies have a wide variety of personalities, traits, and applications. All of this causes the player feels real emotions toward what is going on on screen, creating an all-round fully immersive experience.

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 How is AI evolving in 2023?

The basics of AI in gaming up until now have been based upon two areas, path finding, and finite state machines. Path finding is a simple concept; it tells the non-playing characters where they can and cannot go. Finite state machines are what allows the AI to change its behaviours based on specific conditions. But these two areas are soon to be a distant memory, with AI development rapidly evolving in all sectors. The very same mind-blowing technology that is being created for self-driving cars is being used to transform gaming forever.

We are longer confined to the old ways of gaming; with new AI capabilities entire realistic landscapes can be generated from scratch. The non-playing characters can be much more realistic, with actual emotions and personalities, memories,and ambitions. Adaptive gameplay can analyse your behaviour, learning patterns and game speed to ensure that you are consistently challenged throughout the game. As well as these exciting new elements, there’s also the more functional ones such as AI introducing more efficient testing and bug detection. Any bugs and glitches will be removed quickly and efficiently compared to manual methods.

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Are you ready? 

AI in video games has already evolved substantially, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. We’ve dived into only a few of the features it’s bringing to gaming. Are you ready to see what the future has in store?  

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