Welcome to the AiGameDev.com list of the most influential AI games of all time! You’ll find video and computer games that have used artificial intelligence in innovative ways to critical acclaim, and some of them that have managed to integrate cutting-edge AI technology too…
#10
Sim City
Screenshot: A small coastal town in Sim City 1.
Released: 1989 Developer: Maxis
30 Second Pitch
SimCity is a simulation and a city-building game that spawned a best-selling series. You get a plot of land to build residences, industries and many other buildings to keep the inhabitants of your city satisfied.
Innovations in Game AI
As the first of the “Sim” series, SimCity pioneered a new form of gameplay: controlling a complex simulation.
- Each element of the city is modeled in a realistic way, using AI if necessary (particularly in the most recent versions of the game).
The emergent properties of the system are perfectly balanced to keep the player entertained.
#9
Half-Life
Screenshot: A scientist chatting with a security guard.
Released: 1998 Developer: Valve
30 Second Pitch
Half-Life is a sci-fi first-person shooter featuring Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist stuck inside an underground research facility when teleporting experiments go wrong unexpectedly.
Innovations in Game AI
The cut scenes are entirely interactive. A combination of scripting and AI is used to avoid interrupting the gameplay (i.e. you can use the crowbar to destroy things while being told what to do next).
An AI security guard accompanies the player through some levels early in game.
Squad AI is used effectively for the first time in the latter stages of the game.
Despite not using any revolutionary technology, the AI is very well tweaked and integrated smoothly into the storyline.
#8
Total War
Screenshot: An army in Shogun: Total War marching over the hill.
Released: 2000-2006 Developer: The Creative Assembly
30 Second Pitch
Total War is a series of games combining turn-based strategy on a Risk-like map, with real-time tactical control of battles on a 3D terrain.
Innovations in Game AI
Thousands of AI-controlled soldiers are featured for the first time in a fun and interactive game, without noticeable performance problems.
The game models the emotions of groups of soldiers, essential for simulating battles accurately. This logic is inspired by the book, The Art Of War.
The Total War engine is used on TV by the History Channel as part of the Decisive Battles series.
→ Read Flanking Total War’s AI: 11 Tricks to Conquer for Your Game.
#7
Thief
Screenshot: Two guards in a room in Thief.
Released: 1998 Developer: Looking Glass Studios
30 Second Pitch
Thief: The Dark Project is a single player stealth-based game played from a first person perspective. The main character is Garret, a master thief applying his trade in a medieval/Victorian setting.
Innovations in Game AI
The game uses an accurate sensory model, allowing the AI actors to respond realistically to light and sounds. The whole game is based around this technique.
The AI actors use audio recordings to voice their current state, letting the player understand what’s going on.
→ Read Sneaking Behind Thief’s AI: 14 Tricks to Steal for Your Game.
#6
The Sims
Screenshot: A family inside a house in The Sims.
Released: 2000 Developer: Maxis
30 Second Pitch
The Sims is a life-simulation of the daily activities of a family of virtual characters in a suburban house. The player gets to design and build the house, as well as guide these “Sims” through the day.
Innovations in Game AI
Smart objects are used to help implement the behaviors. The object specifies how each character interacts with it, which has many scalability and workflow advantages over centralized logic.
The Sims each have basic desires which drive their choice of actions.
The emotional interaction between the characters is also modeled, which allows for relationships.
→ Read Living with The Sims’ AI: 21 Tricks to Adopt for Your Game.
#5
Creatures
Screenshot: The cartoon world in Creatures.
Released: 1996 Developer: Millennium Interactive
30 Second Pitch
Creatures is an artificial life program where the user ‘hatches’ small furry animals and teaches them how to behave. These “Norms” can talk, feed themselves, and protect themselves against vicious creatures.
Innovations in Game AI
It’s the first popular application of machine learning into an interactive simulation.
Neural networks are used by the creatures to learn what to do.
The game is regarded as a breakthrough in alife research, which aims to model the behavior of creatures interacting with their environment.
→ Read Evolving with Creatures’ AI: 15 Tricks to Mutate into Your Own Game.
#4
Halo
Screenshot: Halo’s Master Chief in combat.
Released: 2001 Developer: Bungie
30 Second Pitch
Halo: Combat Evolved is a first-person shooter where the player assumes the role of the Master Chief, battling various aliens on foot or in vehicles.
Innovations in Game AI
Enemies use cover very wisely, and employ suppressive fire and grenades.
The squad situation affects the individuals, so certain enemies flee when their leader dies.
A lot of attention is paid to the little details, with enemies notably throwing back grenades or team-members responding to you bothering them.
The underlying “behavior tree” technology has become very popular in the games industry (especially since Halo 2).
→ Read Teaming Up with Halo’s AI: 42 Tricks to Assist Your Game.
#3
Façade
Screenshot: Grace and Trip talking to the player.
Released: 2005 Developer: Procedural Arts
30 Second Pitch
Façade is an interactive story where the couple is invited to the apartment of Grace and Trip, a couple who has a relationship breakdown. The player can coach them using full typed sentences.
Innovations in Game AI
The player interacts with the game by tying text into a natural language parser.
The underlying behavior language provides ways to specify the behavior of characters in terms of a dynamic story.
→ Read Chatting Up Façade’s AI: 23 Ideas to Talk Your Game Into.
#2
F.E.A.R.
Screenshot: Enemy soldiers in F.E.A.R. getting shot down.
Released: 2005 Developer: Monolith Productions
30 Second Pitch
F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon is a first-person shooter where the player helps contain supernatural phenomenon and, naturally, armies of cloned soldiers.
Innovations in Game AI
The AI uses a planner to generate context-sensitive behaviors, the first time in a mainstream game. This technology used as a reference for many studios still today.
The enemies are capable of using the environment very cleverly, finding cover behind tables, tipping bookshelves, opening doors, crashing through windows…
Squad tactics are used to great effect. The enemies perform flanking maneuvers, use suppression fire, etc.
→ Read Assaulting F.E.A.R.’s AI: 29 Tricks to Arm Your Game.
#1
Black & White
Screenshot: A creature casting a spell in Black & White.
Released: 2001 Developer: Lionhead Studios
30 Second Pitch
Black & White is a god game which includes elements of artificial life simulations and some strategy. The player rules over an island populated by various tribes, and can teach a large animal-like creature to do his/her bidding.
Innovations in Game AI
The gameplay is focused on the interaction with a large AI creature which can learn from examples, and takes reward and punishment.
The design integrates artificial life within the context of a strategy game.
The engine uses a solid AI architecture, rooted in cognitive science, known as belief-desire-intention (BDI).
Machine learning techniques such as decision trees and neural networks are used with great success.
→ More technical AI reviews of AAA games.
33 Comments ↓
You should check out the original Dark Reign. The Tactics Engine was just awesome.
Hmm, interesting list.
I’ve started reading a game AI book, and it lists some other games I would have thought more important then Halo at least (which has nothing revolutionary at all on Half-Life, and don’t even get me started on the dumb allies you get in Halo).
They have (which are not on your list):
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss - for brand new things - NPC’s in a world with AI, and the world was 3d too.
Dogz - A virtual dog! I even remember this game - good simulation, and fun too.
Tamagochi - Representing one of the first commercial uses of A-life technology (released before Creatures)
The Last Express - I’m currently playing this, a neat game, or rather interactive movie. Amazing use of a full cast of NPC’s which are autonomous (and are programmed with AI and given tasks, rather then entirely scripted - leading to multiple endings and ways to do, or not do, tasks).
I don’t take credit for putting up these alternatives, and they didn’t have a top 10, just a historical list, but I do agree you’re missing a few influential ones - although I do agree that perhaps halo is influential to AI purely for selling a lot (as much as how it’s level design is influential, or its weapons, or its online play…etc), same with FEAR. I also hope the order doesn’t matter, I don’t think apart from the FPS’s any of the influences overlap :)
So I do agree, those are all influential games in the AI department - not all as influential as each other, and most covering different areas. I’d be interested to see if Civilisation would come on a longer list if it is influential to its own genre due to its age and how well it sold, and other games might match the criteria in their respective field (that racing game which employed neural nets, and respectively high AI’s in other genres).
PS: I know, I know, its a opinionated, top 10 list, which cause my kind of comments. I think perhaps it would have been cooler to do 10+ posts on each game in a series of “Influential games” with a more in-depth look at each one, I’d certainly be interested in that more then a long comment on this single post :)
Thanks for your comment Andrew. I’ve not played the games you mentioned (except Civilization, a lot :-) but I will look into them. The Civilization series was on my mind, but I didn’t feel any other game could be replaced…
I put Halo and F.E.A.R. so high up on the list of influential games for very specific reason. Both Damian Isla and Jeff Orkin (respectively) have written very extensively about their work on the AI in both those games, and the technology has inspired the whole industry.
Just from consulting, or talking to friends in other companies, many game studios are using one of these two techniques (i.e. behavior trees or a STRIPS planner, respectively). I call that influential!
I don’t think I’m too far off, but hey, this list is meant to be controversial :-)
Alex
P.S.: You anticipated my master plan for in-depth weekly reviews very well! I also felt it would be of value to write about each one in more detail.
P.P.S.: Suggestions for other AI Games are very welcome… That was also part of the plan!
You have not played a Tamagochi?! Madness! :) I also see your reasons much more clearly now - if this is how influential the games are at this very second, it might be true Halo and FEAR come near the top, they are a lot newer then most of the others.
And I will await any further more in-depth look at these games :) and if you miss any I think that brought something new to the table or were influential, comment so that you know of them. Civilisation (+Alpha Centuri) is one series (like Sim City) which brings several influential things, although I have not played the newer ones, such as personified world leaders (with their own personalities most importantly), strategic long turn-based play which means careful planning is needed (not done for the AI in the first few games though…), and so on.
I’m surprised not to see Oblivion in this top 10. With their Radiant AI and their goal driven AI, they made a good step toward realism.
Great list and I love seeing half-life up there. Call me bias because it’s probably the game that got me interested in Game AI but there are a lot of nuanced AI in that game that are really impressive and only now being passed by other games (though it has it’s limitations and short comings obviously).
The thing that really stood out to me is half-life is the different behaviors that the different monsters displayed as well as their interactions. Monsters having different stimulus (the tentacles responding to sound) and battle plans (hounds and assassins attacked very differently from say the zombies) really made the game enjoyable.
If you can you should check out Bioshock. While I am enjoying the game for its story telling and setting (just like everyone else who comments on the game) what really stands out to me is the AI. I wouldn’t call it revolutionary but it’s just a very well done implementation of AI in my opinion. The enemies have very good sensory models especially for a game that isn’t based around stealth and once again (like half-life) there is a good amount of variety in the behavior of different entities.
Oblivions Radiant AI, apart from handling up to 20 or so NPC’s in an area, really is nothing on some other RPG’s which do much better day/night behaviour, better guards, routines, etc. It didn’t really have anything good for the designer either since the way you could alter it in their AI editor was poor :(
Oblivions AI was apparently dumbed down on purpose. According to some stories which appeared on the old version of the elderscrolls.com message boards, the AI in the test version was so extreme that NPCs even wandered from town to town, grouped up and chased monsters away from certain locations, essentially doing the players work while he wouldn´t find the person he was looking for in town xyz since that guy just went on a crusade ;-)
The last remainder of this is the guards patrolling between towns who occasionally attack a wolf or a bandit - or another guard if he happens to shoot them accidentally with an arrow.
Quite sad :(
So that’s why they’re fighting each other randomly? I never could figure it out, just walking up on two guards going at it with bow and arrow…
Halo is the greatest however I enjoyed B&W a lot in my earlier years.
Nice list…And on Oblivion, It would be intresting to see a mod which might bring back the AI to the (good?) old days. While it may get a bit harder to do quests, it would be intresting to see NPC’s gang up and go on crusades while i just mix potions all day ;) but i do understand that this way is better for a player who doesn’t want to experiment with the game.
Hi Alex,
System Shock 2 was influential on me at least. I’m not sure how much of a hand Ken Levine (shameless name-drop - he’s the man) had in the AI side of the development of that fantastic precursor to Bioshock but irregardless i would suspect that it inspired many others to create behaviours that reinforce immersion in story focussed games. From recollection, didn’t Thief use the same engine as system shock 2? The dark engine or some-such.
Seaman for the Dreamcast was a truly revolutionary game for its AI. You raised a strange creature from egg through various stages of its life cycle and talk to it via a built in microphone. It learns from your questions and your interactions in a way I have never seen since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaman_%28video_game%29
I think the reaperbots mod for Quake1 was an example of revolutionary programming and the first convincing computer controlled enemy in a FPS. The guy who wrote this did the AI for Half-Life.
I’d like to see your 10 worst AI of all time.
Games that just stunk because the NPC’s were so dumb…
Hi All,
One of the games that at the time left an influence on me with its AI, was Unreal. The Unreal Engine was very nice because of access to unreal script, but a particular battle against a Skaarj warrior left me with a grand impression in regards to the game’s AI. ^_^
Story Mode:
I was sneaking about and came upon him, a Skaarj warrior at the far end of a passage way as I rounded a corner. His back to me, I hid behind some creates that lay about. I fired my pulse pistol (only weapon I had rounds for at the time) at him with full-charge… As the shot neared, he happened to turn to my direction and seemingly notice the incoming round, for nanoseconds before impact he dove for cover behind a crate on his end of the hall. He popped up a time or two firing shots randomly in my direction, as if to flush out or get a bead his unseen assailant. I didn’t respond assuming to wait for him to reset and resume patrolling. But instead he then shot up from his position and ran toward my position zig zagging! I popped up from my cover and fired wildly at him as his actions paniced me! (I had not yet fought one of these guys melee and wanted to keep it that way!) Several times he escaped my wrath as he dove and rolled out of the way while returning fire, and then getting up to resuming his advance in nearly flawless form! The action stunded me rigid for a brief moment as it was so unexpected…I fumbled to cycle my weapons to a close-quarters melee weapon and regain my composure…
/Story Mode
That experience had an influence on what I thought the SOTA(state of the art) in game AI was, as alot of FPS don’t have NPC’s that actually employ such combat tactics as avoiding damage via assault manuvers and using cover in that manner. The engine also made use of sound, vision, and smell for its agents that add to the immersion of the experience. That experince had set a bar that I judged many other game AIs by.
Half-Life set a few more bars because its NPC’s were not all just against you the player, but had natual enemies within the game that depending of the situation took precedence over their want to kill your character. For example a Bullsquid was in closer proximity to some headhuggers. I didn’t think they had seen me where I hid and observed them fighting each other. But when the Bullsquid was victorius, it came after me with ranged attack as I was indeed noticed! The humans fought the aliens over fighting me if I could get the two into proximity, then I would just clear-up the mess! ;)
The Battle Cruiser 3000 AD series made effective use of artificial neural nets to control the NPC’s that ran the ship that your character commanded as well as all the other NPC’s of the game I reckon.
Just my 2 cents, cheers!
How about Stalker? There’s an interesting AI there too.
And about Oblivion… It’s AI (in the current state) is something that Gothic did in 2001.
The only thing I have any qualms with was Halo. My reply to most of your “innovations” in Halo is “um… Half-Life”.
I never saw anything in Halo that I didn’t see in Half-Life first. At least from an AI point-of-view. HL (1 & 2) still has better AI than a lot of shooters out there, sadly.
A good list, but I would not put Black and White at number 1. The claim that it uses a solid AI architecture (BDI) could apply just as well to many other games in the top 10, and ultimately the AI did not deliver on its promises.
I would give the top spot to Creatures because it really pushed the boundaries, and it really delivered on what it claimed it could do. I would give F.E.A.R. the second place for combining groundbreaking AI techniques with critical acclaim.
I hope Spore comes straight in at number 1 when it’s finally released!
“System Shock 2 was influential on me at least.” … “From recollection, didn’t Thief use the same engine as system shock 2? The dark engine or some-such.”
Yes it’s pretty much the same engine (and AI) as the Thief games, so Looking Glass gets the credit on that one. To me, that engine has the best AI (in first/third person type of games) to date, because to me great/”fun” AI is defined not how it behaves during combat, but everything else (doesn’t by any means mean it should totally suck in combat). I couldn’t give a damn if an enemy can duck, side step and do the funky chicken while catching a grenade with its butt cheeks and at the same time shoot at me.
An immersive/good game world to be in, is one that feels as if it’s going about its business, and you’re thrown into it. Not running through a mine field of triggers. For that to work good the world/AI needs some core features, like robust sound propagation and sensory systems and AI visual sensory system.
Most seem to think only a stealth game would need those, which is why I find the unqiue situation of SS2 great. It wasn’t a stealth game but had the great simulation subsystems because it used the same engine as Thief, and it’s part of what makes the game as good as it is. (Mind you, not even stealth games like splinter cell have such a solid simulation base, even though they had years of technical advance and faster computers to be at least as good, pretty pathetic.)
Sadly Bioshock is a huge step back, simplistic audio-visual sensory systems, player centric design (a design change they admitted doing during the developement). I would have thought that if anyone would have gotten “it” it would have been them, then again when a publisher is involved bad things happen, when a publisher owns you… game over man, game over! :)
For those wanting a taste of the promised Oblivion AI should check out the mod “NPCs with Jobs”. It brings in alot of the features that were dropped prior to release, and is shaping up to be something amazing! Strange that those interested in AI didn’t know about it :P
“Yes it’s pretty much the same engine (and AI) as the Thief games, so Looking Glass gets the credit on that one. ”
Hehe, pretty much considering that during the majority of development both games used the same executable. Its the reason for the longer-than-usual loading times associated with both games.
Great list btw, I have to agree that Creatures should really have been the top number. I’m patiently waiting for news of Lucy ;)
“Tamagochi - Representing one of the first commercial uses of A-life technology (released before Creatures)”
They were both released in 1996 and Creatures was far more complex so you really can’t blame him for picking it.
I’m reasonably sure that the Half Life screenshot is from Blue Shift. Not that it makes a difference.
Why Halo is on this list is astounding to me. Didn’t see anything impressive about its AI, actually I think the enemies were some of the dumbest I’ve seen (excepting of course the cops in the GTA series….which is probably intentional)
Planescape: Torment should definitely be somewhere near the top, and yet its not even on the list. So should Oblivion.
@Matt
Alex talked about why Halo was up there, it is because Damian Isla (the AI programmer for Halo), wrote about AI and was very influetential in it, plus Halo 3 has complex and quite new “Pack AI” where there is a leader AI, and he has subordiantes who flee when he dies and follow his orders.
Oblivion should be up there, donno bout Planetscape, heard about it though.
@J23
Well the man himself may have done considerable work in the field of AI, the game still has crappy AI. (Note that I’ve only played 1 and 2, and he mentions specifically 1 so :/)
RE: Creatures.
The screenshot isn’t from Creatures, it’s from either Creatured Adventures or Creatures Playground.
And it’s norns, not norms.
-Wolf
Um… Halo has done very little that’s new or revolutionary in terms of AI (and that goes for all three games). Leader/Pack AI has been present in RTS games for some time now (especially the Total War series), and while porting it to FPS is certainly interesting, it’s not revolutionary by any means.
Unreal was mentioned already, and I agree that it had wonderful AI - it made for truly realistic combat scenarios, and Unreal Tournament really expanded on it with the squad AI it used. Watching your CTF opponents provide cover and support for the flag runner while still using cover themselves is rather impressive, especially given that it was released in 1999. Indeed, different bots responded in different ways, according to preset preferences, and could be aggressive, stealthy, defensive, you name it.
And I’m sorry, but the creatures in Black and White were dumb as bricks. The AI was undoubtedly revolutionary, but it was like training retarded five-year-olds - constant baby-sitting.
Nice list, but I’m really missing Far Cry’s tactical team AI … :(
from a player’s point of view, I’d say the Metal Gear Solid games had AI that made the game really fun.
and what about Republic Commando? I heard it had the best squad based AI during its time. fun game too, albeit a bit short
NERO (google Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives) isn’t as much a game as perhaps a toy, but it uses cutting edge research in evolutionary neural networks.
As I recall the “squad” AI in FEAR didn’t exist, all the squad VO like “Cover me” was to cover the fact that no NPC interaction was occurring, it was purely every man for himself.
I have been posting requests to developers of game software to please create a software for chess enthusiasts like myself who would like to invest their money in a chess program that not only displays the games of famous chess players from the earliest to the latest years, but will actually create an avatar of the famous players and give each selected “famous avatar” a voice and graphics with body movements. Also, this software (not yet created) will create imaginary games that never existed, i.e., Paul Morphy of the 1800s versus Charles Staunton (never played each other). Who would win?
hi alex! you have to include a chess game, just for completeness sake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Fritz is a good candidate). afaik chess has always been a very central topic in game ai :)
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