Artificial intelligence has quickly become one of the most exciting pieces of tech and software in the world. It has revolutionized almost every sector, from medicine and machinery to shopping and gaming.

Speaking of gaming, many game studios have already shown the power of AI, and with so much more improvement to be made, there is almost no limit to what AI can do for online games.

Faster & better game design

One area where AI sees a lot of use is in the development and design of games, worlds, environments, and levels. Considering the fact that you can teach AI to do things, game designers are teaching it to create parts of games.

For example, with very little effort, you can teach an AI what you want a piece of your gaming world to look like and what it must include, whether it be an Online Casino or an MMORPG; the AI will then code and create the assets themselves. This can save studios tons of time and money, as they won’t need to spend ages creating trees, rocks, and wind elements and instead can focus on the more important aspects of the game.

Improved NPCs

If you have played any game that has NPCs, whether it be League of Legends, World of Warcraft, or Assassin’s Creed, you know that they can be very basic and boring; AI is set to change that entirely.

Dialogue

No matter how varied NPC dialogue may seem, conversations typically only have one or two outcomes. This is because it is a never-ending process to add dialogue lines into a game, and developers need to draw the line.

However, with AI, not only can you have an almost infinite amount of dialogue lines, conversations will vary so much that you may never get the same reply twice.

Player interaction

If you have played the game Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, you will know all about the ground-breaking Nemesis System. This system changed how the main character would interact and battle with orcs, with each interaction changing depending on how the last interaction went.

If you take this a step further, AI can be used to give each and every NPC a “brain” and therefore change how they interact with your character depending on what you do for or against them.

This can be used on a big or small scale, too. If you enter a village and attack a random person, the villagers may praise you and give you gifts if your victim is a bad person, or they may attack you back if the person you attacked was a respected member of the village.

How NPCs view the player

Building on the last point, how they interact with you and what you do will leave a lasting change in how they view you. NPCs can develop an admiration for you or a grudge against you, and they can interact with other NPCs, either convincing them to love or hate you too.

Better pathfinding

Pathfinding may not be something you think about too much while playing a game, but it is something that can make a huge difference when done poorly. To explain it in simple terms, pathfinding in Pac-Man was the ghosts’ ability to make their way around the maze to try and get to Pac-Man without getting stuck anywhere.

AI can make pathfinding a breeze and therefore improve the movement of NPCs, bosses, cars, animals, and anything else that may move in a game.

Increased DLC

Even though we now live in a world that has live-service games, and we rely on DLC to keep the experience fresh and exciting, one major complaint is how long we have to wait for DLC and for new parts of a game to be added.

AI can completely overhaul not only how quickly DLC can be created but also how much of it can be added to. Developers are always under pressure to add new parts of the game, but they can’t add entirely new worlds, only sections; AI can change this.

Procedural generation

Procedural generation is another aspect of gaming that many people may be familiar with if they have played games such as Minecraft or No Man’s Sky. In simple terms, procedural generation is when the computer creates new parts of a world without requiring a programmer to code it.

AI has the ability to do procedural generation, but a thousand times better. It will be able to create buildings, tons of NPCs, animals, new enemies, and everything in between.

Bug testing & fixing

Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence has the power to iron out any bugs and problems when developing a game. The main problem with so many bugs is that they are near impossible to test for, as many only come to the fore when something unexpected is done by a player.

Many bugs in games have come from players using two items in particular and, more importantly, unique way that ends up frying the code. As mentioned, bugs like this are near impossible to fix as developers will need to test every conceivable way an item can be used by the player or in the environment, and they have to do it with every single item.

Instead, AI can be used to do all this work for them. It can run through every use and permutation of an item, asset, character, and NPC and quickly find any possible bugs.

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Less cheating

In online games, even if you have only played for a day or two, you have most likely come across a cheater. Even once-beloved games such as PUBG and Escape from Tarkov have become overrun with cheaters that ruin the experience for everyone else.

One main problem with anti-cheat systems is that once you know how they work, it is easy to find a way around them. A game like Warzone has one of the best anti-cheat systems around, yet cheaters still find a way around it and are able to play for a while before being banned.

AI can be used to stop cheating because it can learn what to look for. During a game, the moment a player does something that the AI knows is not possible, it is able to lock onto them and kick them from the game immediately.