Tactical breakdowns and match reviews are video games that incorporate artificial intelligence (AI). The use of AI in games has increased significantly over the past few years. The technology is used to improve game realism, enhance gameplay and create more engaging experience for players.

Increasingly, developers are using AI to provide more immersive gaming experiences and more lifelike non-player characters (NPCs). This is accomplished through pathfinding algorithms, behavior trees, reinforcement learning and procedural generation, among other techniques.

The goal of AI in games is to increase realism and the player’s sense of immersion in the virtual world. This is accomplished through a variety of techniques, including implementing more realistic AI NPCs, improving physics, and enhancing gameplay mechanics.

From NPCs to Strategy: Exploring the Role of AI in Modern Gaming

NPCs are programmed with simple rules and conditions to determine their behavior. For example, if an NPC knows it is out of bullets it will move to a cover object and hide until it can reload. This kind of behavior is typical of action and first-person shooter games.

Many gamers enjoy playing AI games because the generative technology used in the game allows for more natural, human-like behaviors, which leads to a greater sense of immersion and engagement with the virtual world. This generative AI can also make the game more unpredictable, which some gamers enjoy by trying to break the game’s AI.

In addition to enhancing the realism of game worlds, AI in games is used to solve complex problems such as balancing game difficulty and designing adaptive environments that evolve based on the player’s actions. The following table provides a bird’s-eye view of publicly available games and platforms incorporating AI, categorized by the game genre, research aims, number of agents, and observability of the simulated physical space with which the agent(s) interact.