The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360)

AI

Radiant AI.

If you’ve been following the development of the game for as long as we have then you’ll probably be sick of hearing about RAI by now. RAI attempts to bring a new level of realism into the game world by taking the standard AI archetype and putting even more complexity over the top of it. The result is that you have a far more interesting, and unpredictable AI than a normal game.

Every NPC has a schedule, they eat, wander, sleep and do most of the things that you’d expect people to do. They have likes, dislikes and jobs to do. They might farm or work in their fields, they might be a member of the City Watch or they might be a thief or assassin in disguise.

If someone decides that they’re hungry and they have no source of food, they might steal a loaf of bread or a hunk of cheese. Woe betide them if the guard catches them doing so, it usually ends in a quick and brutal battle where the offender is left lying dead on the street. They will also adhere to a proper schedule, some might go shopping in a far off city, or town, some might decide that it’s just a nice day for a walk in the forest and promptly get attacked by a ravenous brown bear.

It could be said that the AI in this game is the most realistic yet, since we often go wild at the complexities of other games where the AI uses team tactics, cover and other elements. RAI blows a big raspberry to this and gives every personality their own unique set of instructions, their own hatreds and so on. If someone decides to get drunk and punches someone on their hate list, then so be it.

The game handles this fairly well, there are a few hiccups, but to be honest the AI can usually reset itself and wander off to do something else if it gets stuck on an object or particular path – you just have to wait for a few minutes, or if you’re that bored you can press the back button and allow time to pass, up to 24 hours at a time.

This is the next big step forwards for AI and it doesn’t just govern the NPCs, whilst some of the Foresters will hunt deer there can be a moment or two where a monster or bandit attacks and spoils the happy life of the AI’s schedule. For example I was wandering near Bruma when I caught sight of a forester hunting; I decided to tag along and watched the man shooting a few deer. He was content to do so until a pair of bandits decided he was fair game, they let fly an arrow and caught him just as he was about to kill the deer – he wasn’t at all happy about being shot and took time out from his busy day to kill them both.

This wasn’t scripted, this happened because the Forester decided the Bandits had annoyed him sufficiently, he’d have probably come hunting me had one of my spells or arrows misfired and hit him.

Here’s another example. I decided to tag along with a really irksome fellow as he made his way from Bruma to the Imperial City, he wasn’t at all talkative and made several threats…I was pondering using the man to enter in the Dark Brotherhood, but as he was rounding a corner he was attacked by a bear, it didn’t kill him and it demonstrated to me how powerful this guy really was, he took it out. I decided to keep up with him again, and a few more bears, a Minotaur and he was still going strong.

Then he was ambushed by a mountain lion and died, I looted the corpse and left him there for the rest of the world to see.

These are two pretty mild examples of the AI governing the world; it’s certainly one of those games that require extended play to see some of the incidents that I have heard happening, happen. There are also AI sets that govern creatures like goblins, these little things have a hatred for you, everyone else and other goblin tribes…it’s said that by stealing something important to them you can cause war between the tribes.

Radiant AI marks a great step forwards for AI in general and sets the bar for other games to follow.