Arma 3 Developers Talk AI Ahead of March Alpha

“We’ve given ourselves some quite big challenges,” says Bohemia Interactive’s Jay Crowe.

Arma 3 is about to get an Alpha build launch, which its developers Bohemia Interactive want to get into players’ hands as soon as possible. That’s due to happen very soon, and Bohemia’s been talking about what Co-Creative Director Jay Crowe describes as its “quite big challenges” as it builds towards Alpha launch.

One of its biggest challenges is integrating its AI. “New functionality means we need to train our AI to do more things,” says Project Lead Joris-Jan van ‘t Land. “We try to refrain from trickery and simulate AI behavior in all aspects; letting them walk around, engage in infantry combat, fly gunships, drive boats and do many of the things players do.” This will get all the more complicated in Arma 3, since it will be introducing underwater combat, minefields, and rifle-mounted grenade launchers, among other things, and AI is often foozled by complex game elements.

Task Force Balance, according to van ‘t Land, has been one of the key issues. The Task Force Balance team has been working on finding the sweet spot in which authenticity, realism and fun work together to create a balanced whole. “Their [the Task Force Balance team] initial focus has been on the regular infantry squad and their weapons, and now they are moving on to specialized weapons and vehicles,” says van ‘t Land. “We want to be able to proudly show off our advanced AI by making sure it’s properly configured.” There’s still a long way to go – this is only the alpha, after all – but Bohemia’s feeling reasonably confident that it’s headed in the right direction.

Arma 3, Bohemia Interactive’s military shooter set in a fictionalized Greece, recently hit the headlines when the Greek government took two Bohemia developers into custody on espionage charges. The pair were later bailed, and are now back working for Bohemia. “There was really no stopping either of them,” says Crowe. “I think Ivan [Buchta] could probably still work with a newborn baby under each arm, a beer in his lifting-hand, and a keyboard in the other.”

Source: PC Gamer