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Comment by ArtWomb | Hacker News Reader

Good intro. There is a lot of history covered here. And of course, the art is in the implementation ;)

Currently, an interesting new (neuro-)evolution is happening in Game AI. With the OpenAI 5 and it's "180 years of training per day". We begin to see the feedback loop of game design being influenced by AI.

Detroit: Become Human is one recent example of how AI is used to manage the enormous complexity in game narrative. And some hotly anticipated titles for the fall including Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding will demonstrate the state-of-the-art.

And I don't think it's just for open world environments. Or a new generation of cloud-enabled VR / AR experiences. AI will also be used to re-design "flaws" in arcade classics. And render them infinitely playable into the future.

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>Detroit: Become Human is one recent example of how AI is used to manage the enormous complexity in game narrative.

What does it do? From walkthroughs I've seen, it looks extremely scripted.

If there's anything that Detroit: Become Human does well, it's branching narrative. Does it approach true freedom? Not at all. But compared to, say, Telltale games or something like Until Dawn, it's pretty impressively open ended[0].

Now, do I recommend it? Absolutely not. It starts off really good, especially if you're already expecting another Heavy Rain or Beyond Two Souls. But after a few hours (maybe just one?) it gets heavier and heavier handed. It's impressive how quickly it turns from an interesting story about both intolerance and what it means to be human, and just becomes a series of scenes that practically scream "DO YOU GET IT YET? DO YOU?".

Probably still the best David Cage game I've seen, mostly for the strong intro and branching narrative, but that's like picking your favorite Uwe Boll movie. If you want to play one of these style of games and can handle horror, I'd point you toward Until Dawn instead, as I think that's probably the best example of the genre.

[0]: [Spoilers] Here's a graph of the choices available in one mission. Some are significantly more linear, some are even more complex. Note that other missions may include two or more (Up to 5 I think?) starting points. https://d1lss44hh2trtw.cloudfront.net/assets/editorial/2018/...

Do you have any links on the Detroit AI you mention? All I see on the GDC vault are talks about lighting and engine tech, can't seem to find any game AI info.

Do you have links to any information on the use of AI in Detroit's narrative? Searching for "Detroit AI narrative" isn't working well for obvious reasons!

Detroit engine is 100% proprietary. Hopefully, Quantic Dreams and David Cage will share more in time. But there are still several generations of DLC to be released ;)

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