Games with the best enemy AI this gen

I think Last of Us 2 has the best enemy AI this gen. I'm talking specifically about the human enemies. They react intelligently and realistically. In other games, you can get away with the most blatant attacks lol. Here, the enemies notice very easily when a team member is gone. They even call each other and coordinate their attacks on you. They will surround you and pressure you. You can't just walk up to them and have your way with them lol. You will get shot immediately. They also flush you out with the dogs. If you're under a car and they spot you, they will pull you out. Overall, the enemy AI is one of the most impressive things about this game, and it's about time developers focus on this. Hopefully we'll continue to see this type of thing next gen.

Your thoughts, SW? What games have the best enemy AI this gen in your opinion?

MGSV.

@SolidGame_basic: a.i. mobility goes to doom eternal, a.i. mobility comes from rage which came from left 4 dead mobility but yeah.

The Last of Us 2 and it isn't even close.

@Mozelleple112: a.i. in games hasnt advanced much over the years tbh, the greatest a.i. advancement came in mobility the ability for enemies to maneuver environments better about it.

Man those dogs.

Doom Eternal on nightmare. Each enemy react differently. Especially archvillie and his super demon.

Warhammer 40K: Gladius. I have been blown away by how dynamic and challenging it is

TBH I've sort of given up hope for any impressive AI. Seems like a real lack of progress since the late-90's or early 2000's.

I guess Horizon: Zero Dawn had some neat encounters with the robots.

Glad to hear you are enjoying it :D

I've always found AI in TBS and 4X games to be somewhat merciless lol. I might just not be that good though :D

The real answer if we're being honest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero

Alien: Isolation, Total War: Warhammer 2, Witcher 3, Middle Earth: Shadow of War.

its hard to make smart enemy ai and also very resource hog

Other than the alien in Isolation, nothing. This kinda makes me sad because AI took a back seat this gen. Maybe there's something else out there, but I can't really think of anything else.

@mrbojangles25: yeah this one is ridiculously hard. But... It feels like you're playing a good human and not a cheaply omniscient computer. Pretty impressed.

Yeah it probably can be if taken to a certain level. But I think the real "issue" is on how big of an undertaking it is for designers and programmers to push that aspect forward. And the more complex behavior you introduce, the more things can go wrong. End up with unintentionally comical scenarios or instances that just make your game look broken. Of course we already have that with lots of games, just assuming the issues would become more frequent and severe. Not to say it's an impossible undertaking to bring game AI to a new level, but that there's an exponential curve to it. The more complexity you introduce, the more you have to trouble shoot and tweak and it becomes a development time/money pit. And that's just to get consistency in the enemy/npc behavior you think you want, still might not translate to an enjoyable play experience when tested.

Ironically, it might be tools based on real AI that help iron out the design/development process for better game AI in the coming years lol.

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That being said, not like smart or realistic game AI is something to be desired in a lot of cases. Imo the best game AI is AI that properly facilitates the designers goal and the players enjoyment. And that can be relatively simple, or at least far from smart/realistic. Like two of the mentions in this thread, MGSV and Doom Eternal. Far from anything you would consider intelligent. But MGSVs AI services the stealth/action sandbox very well, providing direct tension and challenge when needed, but also flexible enough to allow for unintended scenarios to crop up and room for players to experiment. Doom Eternal, much more simple, but achieves its goals even better. Forcing the player to master their mobility, prioritize targets on the fly, and to a lesser degree (more on the enemy design itself), make split second decisions on the best tool for the job. And most importantly to keep it moving at all times.

I'd personally look to both of those as some very good AI this gen, but it's more about their design and how they fit into the bigger picture than it is about them being highly sophisticated "realistic" systems.

Not to say some genres/games wouldn't greatly benefit from massive improvements in AI, there are some that absolutely could. Just think that for most it's not necessary, and that proper design overrides having a complicated technical back end.

Shit, this was meant to be a short post lol.

@ConanTheStoner: its ok i get it.

i did a sort sentence on it. seeing its really a large subject to talk about both game and not related.

@firedrakes:

Ha, yeah for sure man.

It's a complicated subject that most of us aren't really equipped to discuss in detail. Can only assume what it's like to design and program game AI, and I'm sure someone in that field would roll their eyes when reading my post. At least that's how I feel as a 3d artist watching gamers talk about my field.

Probably best we discuss the final result rather than what it actually takes to get there.

Ironically I do work for an AI company now, but won't pretend to really understand it beyond the surface level. I only create synthetic data for machine learning.

Agree the way the enemies flank the shit out of you, you always have to keep guard not like other games where they just sit back and don't even try to approach you.

i like how one of the people talking about is. as a near infinite branching river.

TLOU2 and Escape From Tarkov. EFT AI still has glitches since the game isn't completed, but the things that ai does, is not something you see in games.

Last of Us 2 and I want Grounded soon. The AI right now, while pretty good for a game is still very lenient.

It really gives you plenty of leeways when sneaking but I guess this can also be a sign of good design because you always have a way out and they won't suddenly corner you from every angle.

They just seem to magically turn away sometimes.

Ahhh! I forgot that one. Alien AI was incredible.

I thought EFT was strictly player vs player...it has AI enemies?

How is it, by the way? Was thinking of buying either that or GTFO.

If you think the AI in TLoU2 isn't impressive you're either lying or you haven't played the game.

FEAR has great AI, it has gone backwards ever since.

On Zelda BOTW I had an enemy attack me with a weapon I threw at it.

On the contrary any Ubisoft game has the dumbest AI.

Yea, I can't think of a game that does it better. At least not in this genre.

@jewdaddy: Well I think The Last of us 2 is that next level advancement. Truly a level above anything else I have played.

MGSV: Phantom Pain had excellent AI too and the original TLOU was great.

Alien: Isolation and TLoU2 are obvious choices.

Would like to see a game really focusing on AI. Maybe using machine learning to analyse an absurd amount of multiplayer games.

@phbz: wasn't there an indie or 2nd tier AAA recently that used ML for the enemies to learn your patterns and kick it back at you? Sounded kind of cool but frustrating, lol

I forgot about this one. IIRC, Elon Musk's company helped with the AI's development here. Totally obliterated world champs.