Endure and Survive: the AI of The Last of Us | AI and Games #52
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 มิ.ย. 2024
- Naughty Dog's 'The Last of Us' is one of the most revered titles on the Playstation platform. While the player is tasked with guiding Joel and Ellie through post-apocalyptic America, the underlying AI systems help bring the rest of the drama to life. In this episode, we explore the AI systems within the game. Not just enemy characters such as the Hunters and Infected but also the supporting characters within the story and most notably Ellie herself. Plus all the weird and interesting things that were tried, tested and discarded during development.
This episode is inspired by the following sources:
Game AI Pro, volume 2, chapters 33-35 by Mark Botta, Travis McIntosh and Max Dyckhoff
www.gameaipro.com/
Ellie: Buddy AI in The Last of Us
Max Dyckhoff, GDC 2014
• Ellie: Buddy AI In The...
Programming Context-Aware Dialogue in The Last of Us
Jason Gregory, GDC 2014
• Programming Context-Aw...
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Chapters
[00:00] Introduction
[01:19] Design Philosophy
[03:44] AI Architecture
[07:57] The Hunters
[18:38] The Infected
[27:00] Ellie
[34:44] Closing
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#TheLastOfUs #Ellie #GameDev - เกม
The Last of Us is one of the most beloved titles on the Playstation platform. With the long-awaited sequel mere days away, what better time to take a look at the inner workings of the original game. I mean this is all thanks to my Patreon supporters, they voted for the topic after all - I just had the unenviable task of producing and releasing this video before Last of Us Part II made it to shelves after Sony announced a new release date. I didn't plan on making this video until next month - given I have been churning out episodes much faster than usual - but figured why not cash in on all the hype. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is the last of the - entirely unintended - 'season of stealth' that included episode #50 (Alien: Isolation) and #51 (Splinter Cell). Next up? Well, patrons are voting for new episodes now, but I have a couple fun ideas up my sleeve. Stay tuned!
After hearing all the leaks are true, and the story and gameplay is nothing new, it's not hype you're likely cashing in on, but nostalgia
@@weftin5721 The story is quite new though
Looking forward to your analysis of the AI in Last of Us 2!
Did you know that if an enemy is alone and you knock them down and then aim a weapon at them, they'll attempt to surrender and beg you not to kill them?
SOURCE: th-cam.com/video/vw40iUAYCW4/w-d-xo.html
"We wanted to make sure they wouldn't walk into walls"
*Ellie proceeds to walk into a wall at the end of the video*
"you're right. You're not my daughter, and I'm sure as hell not your dad."
That line always got me. Because he obviously loves her like his daughter, but is afraid of losing her, so he pushes. Beautiful.
That's not the line
@@carsonellis4994 Close. The line was "You're right. You're not my daughter, and I am sure as hell not your dad"
@@carsonellis4994 there u go, I fixed it.
"You're right you are not my dad, and im sure as hell not your daughter
@@smilemore9663 lmao
I may not always react in believable ways, but I, too, highly prioritise my On-Fire skill.
Fascinating to learn the clickers *did* in fact navigate via echolocation early in development! The game's writing gets some criticism for a scene where the characters-now falsely-state this as the case. Interesting that the error didn't originate in the script, but from a mechanical re-implementation.
I agree, a bit disappointed that they didn’t end up keeping that implementation though, would’ve been a much more terrifying experience. Hopefully they get that buff in pt. ii
@@pb.9316 Good news. TLOU2 has that realistic implementation
Never knew they didn't. They did seem Janky though.
@Fraser Souris Yeah at first I was confused how they could see me without me moving but then I realized they had real echolocation now
Well, in universe they still navigate using echolocation, even if they dont actually as a gameplay mechanic
please tell me youre gonna do a vid that tackles the AI of the second game?? IT has some of the most realistic human AI ive seen..
2 years later, video on the 2nd game just dropped! ;)
@@doctor_owl and 2 years earlier than promised too
Hey, could you possibly cover the Nemesis System in Shadow of War? I'm incredibly interested in how it works, and no one explains things as well as you do.
Wow! Great video. I never realized how much work goes in to make the hunter’s ai so natural. The way that they flank me sometimes is really cool and catches me off guard.
Great, now I can't help but imagine a congo line with clickers... thanks Tommy
You. Are. Welcome!
Conga, conga, conga!
Sadly how the humans AI is overlooked because your companions dancing all around them and they not seeing them completely destroys the pilosophy they were working in.
It’s just the perpetual battle of realism versus player frustration. I know I’d personally rather go “haha she just ran in front of that hunter” than “ellie just got noticed ruining the stealthy approach I’ve been working on for 7 minutes.” But even with godtier cover navigation AI i feel like it would still be a problem.
The human ai is pretty dumb
I thought it was funny that when I was playing earlier during the runner horde before the school section Ellie got stuck inside a bus - she was physically inside the the tire and infinitely crouch walking while a runner fruitlessly tried to attack her.
Luckily the next objective was a cutscene so Ellie escaped her prison before it was too late
It's interesting that they highlighted that people's perception of AI is often completely dependant on how that AI appears to behave, rather than how it actually thinks. It reminds me of Max Payne 3, and how the enemy npc's actually had an amazing amount of behaviours and telegraphs for things like fear, pain and self-preservation but because they all speak portuguese and the game doesn't provide english subtitles, most players actually couldn't easily recognize those behaviours.
Conga line AI - I can’t unhear it now :) Thanks Tommy for the episode, I can imagine how much work you put into it. Love how down to earth, detailed, clear, and humorous your explanations are! So good.
Sorry, not sorry!
I just completed this last night so I could finally watch this.
I had played it years ago, but its linearity put me off at the time.
With the sequel now out, I felt it was time to revisit it, and finish the game.
I enjoyed it greatly.
Thanks for the always excellent video!
Awesome channel. Super interesting stuff! I'd love to see more stuff on the appearance of fear and self-preservation in enemy AI. It makes such a difference when you're playing a game and rather than just singlemindedly trying to find a process to kill you, the enemy actually acts like they don't want to die. Last of Us is definitely strong on this. MGSV has it's great hold up system, but it doesn't feel as dynamic. I remember an old video on one of the COD games where they showed how certain enemy types (spetznaz I think) would combat roll to the side when they detected your muzzle pointed at them. Some games also have tried to implement these systems but they fall down. I think it was Skyrim or Oblivion where enemies would flee, but after a short timer they would always flip back to full aggression and it felt very silly.
I wish you also spoke on the hotel fight demo, and how that changed. The Hunter that sprints through rooms to hide from Joel was something I never experience.
That whole “balance of power” system was scrapped. Another example of misleading pre-release trailers and marketing.
Yeah rather than dynamic they just made it so the Molotov guys run away from you. Throwing a bunch of AI with pre set approaches in combat scenarios that rely on player choice to create an imitation of dynamic enemy decision making is nothing new- but it is disappointing given the game was marketed on something better.
I had to come here after watching your video on Alien Isolation’s AI. I played TLOU on PS3 & PS4, many hours/days spent on campaign. I’m sure I’ll meet some nostalgia in this video. Thanks
Great break down of how the AI systems work in the game.
Definitely should be a much more popular channel. Keep up these great videos.
Awesome job, I'm new to your channel and seeing how well you explain such topics, I'd love for you to do a piece on Gears Tactics, that game had awesome AI for the genre
Oh, I've yet to play it. It's next on my Game Pass backlog and I'm quite excited to try it out.
@@AIandGames to me, that's a needed piece in understanding how turn-based combat will evolve in the future.
sure the game feels more like a work in progress, as it can be quite empty on some aspects but what it does is revolutionary.
i still cant believe one of the only games to have my city of pittsburgh is one of the best games ever, but also have i in my fav settings of zombie apocalypse (and one of the best zombie worlds out there) its just crazy seeing places names and deteriorated versions of buildings i recognize and have seen multiple times, especially with it being somewhere you feel like is never noticed, unlike people in nyc la florida or dc seeing their home in hundreds of movies
I live in Utah, so it's crazy for me when I go up to Salt Lake City and see all the buildings really there with the same mountain in the backdrop!
I think the hospital in the game is just a school or something, IRL.
I've even driven through the tunnel at the end with all the infected! It's just like 30% shorter IRL, lol
Great analysis! I learned a lot
35:15 - Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist have "witnessing a silent kill" feature mentioned in that TLOU2 article. It works a bit different, but the point is the same: after seeing a silent kill or even a body thrown out of the window/from the roof AI gets an idea of where you are and run there, but he doesn't know your exact position, so it's not an alert state.
I really hope you'll make a video about The Last of Us Part II's AI.
Wanna have a fun time?
On the part where you are with Henry and you have to fight the infected, go inmediatly where they would be jumping off, and when one comes nearby, throw a smoke bomb to them. Stay inside the smoke and stay totally still. Now, see how they all try to catch you but can't do anything at all. They will pass around you like a river around a rock, and see how some T-pose and levitate towards you. You can actually beat it by throwing a Molotov to the furthest entrance, and funnelling all of them just when the door's open. Then, run out and look at that: you only wasted a Molotov and a smoke bomb!
"How do we make the player feel bad about killing enemies" So we made them murderers and cannibals
Man, the animations in this version are so different from the PS3. The PS4 version makes the PS3 look like a really nice PS2 game.
This is absolutely fantastic great video very informative
Very interesting content, really well explained, pro
Will you make the same kind of analysis about TLOU part 2's A. I. ? Maybe in higher difficulties, like surviror or grounded modes, where the enemies shine / punish the most ? Or all systems for each type of enemy and how they specifically work in each difficulty level (what a laborious task)
Anyway, thank you for sharing your knowledge
A "fungal virus" LOL. For reals though, a great video, keep it up.
I know its an old game, but you should do an AI video on Operation Flashpoint : Dragon Rising by codemasters. Absolutely brilliant AI and still to this day (IMO) the best military AI ever written
try thief trilogy
a new AI And Games episode! Today's a good day.
Good tips for Friday.
really enjoying this
Pleeeeeaase do a video on the AI in The Last of Us pt 2!! The AI in that game feel so real and are so tactical in combat, that I feel like a video on that is a must for your channel!
32:00 "magic bricks"
to be fair to Ellie, she IS the brick *fucking* master
I'd recomend playing a horror game called "monstrum" and It would be really cool to see a video of It's AI like this.
They have some trouble coping with stairs tho.
I completly forgot that stalkers where a thing in the first part. I thought they were new in part 2!
Marquis In Part 2 the Stalkers have some new behavior such as blending in with the fungal walls, breaking free, and jumpscaring. In Part 1 the infected that became fungal wall fauna were static and just decoration.
The stalkers looks have slightly changed too. Part 2 has them with really long fungal stalks. Part 1’s looked more like they were between the runner and clicker stages.
@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive As I said, I had completely forgotten that these stalkers also existed in the first part. That the infected that became fungal wall fauna only were static, is something I remember. But the stalkers? I honestly forgot about their existence.
@Marquis I don't remember the word "stalker" ever being uttered in the main TLOU P1 campaign. I only remember Ellie calling them that while in the Colorado mall in _Left Behind_ when they sprang out in the flooded garage as she was looking for gasoline to power a generator.
I beat the game not realizing they were their own class of infected. I just thought that they were runners with fungal growths, and didn't realize they never hid, ran away, or ducked before then.
@@MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive Same! But I thought Stalkers where hiding and ducking, and the normal infected are not. Am I mistaken?
Marquis You’re right.
Hey, can you talk about Swat 4 AI? Would be interesting to see how they did the suspect, hostage and police officers AI for the game
Hmmmm, I do actually know the guy who was AI lead on Swat 4. Only trick is whether I can convince him to talk about it.
I know The Last of Us II is being heavily criticized right now, but I'd love to see a video about the AI of that game, story aside that game looks and preforms beautifully
@@oznerolk Ikr, the fact that actors and writers for the game are receiving death threats and people are mostly whining about easily debunkable "plot holes" shows that the vast majority are just pissed because the leaks painted a very different picture and the marketing (as unnecessarily as it was) was misleading. There is no way most of them played the full game, it's pretty easy to tell who actually did and who just watched a handful of cutscenes and then think they are experts. Approaching the game with an open mind and riding it as it was meant to be played makes it a fun experience. However I do understand there may be aspects about the story that not everyone may like and there are definitely some legitimate criticism to be made.
th-cam.com/video/6Z8FR0ydnvQ/w-d-xo.html
oznerolk Gamers are _the most oppressed minority_ for a reason. I am a gamer and hate most gamers.
26:28 that was removed? I could have sworn if I were up against an object a clicker wouldn’t be able to see me even if they had a direct line of sight because I looked like part of the object, the same principle that allows planes to hide from radar by flying near the surface.
You likely remember correctly, but it's because the clickers have no line-of-sight whatsoever-they're blind. In the release version they can _only_ detect sounds, so you could even hide in the open if you're quiet enough.
Is there one on the second one?
I would SELL MY LIVER for a breakdown of TLOU2 and it’s AI improvements and pitfalls.
Investigation: when you throw multiple things in a room, they shouldn´t investigate after, let´s say, stone3 but acknowledge that someone wants to distract them and then take a different approach.
As a non game related AI developer I can say that the AI of last of us 1 wasn't good for its time compared to some other games, but they succeeded, that it wasn't bad either for its time, so that their design cornerstone to make enemies believable human being worked out.
But if you play last of us 1 in 5 years and you didn't lived through the last 15 years of AI development in games you will notice very much strange AI behaviour.
Last of us 2 has mostly the same AI than its first part, but here we already notice that the AI is not very good.
This comparison is also kind of unfair for last of us 1 because we saw huge steps in AI development since 2010 and it is just natural that games need time to adapt those advances in a way they work for them.
You forgot to mention the U.S. Military as one of the factions.
I’m a simple man, I see the original TLOU and I click.
You should do AI for racing games!
19:54 - What the hell is going on right there? Shouldn't the player have colliders?
With the new Remake boasting a revamped AI and gameplay, I hope you guys plan to do a comparison when the remake releases in Saptember.
Did they really try to make me feel bad for killing humans in TLOU? It didn't seem like that to me.
I think it’s funny I never felt bad about gunning down hunters 😅
Because they were pieces of shit anyways. It felt good to kill them.
"You're right, you're not my father and I'm sure as hell not your daughter"
--Joel
This is epic 😎
1:49 - 1:56, 17:02 -17:06
2:02 Bro i literally didn't feel bad about killing any of the human characters lol.
Конусы обзора 9:25 (формы дверной скважины) Разрабы за 5 месяцев прописали ии компаньонов, вот почему демка в январе была без компаньонов в экшен секции
sigh...
I wonder what you'll think about the sequel...not of the game itself but maybe its AI aspects, if there's any difference or any improvements made to it.
You'll find out in 2025 when I finally get around to playing it! 😅
From what I've seen from reviews...there's little to no change to the AI as far as I can tell.
Jose Razo
I mean there could be new additions, they added the dog mechanic that sniffs out your location; and the prone feature, which adds more to the line of sight of enemies seeing you, when you’re either hiding in a bush or under a car.
As someone who’s played all of Naughty Dog’s games, I can assure you that there’s drastic changes to the A.I. in part 2. Not only from everything I’ve seen in the trailers, but also because Uncharted 4 already fixed all of the A.I. issues that the last of us had.
AI and Games As someone who’s a fan of your channel, it’s a shame that you won’t be covering part 2 any time in the near future. Part 1 is now 7 years old, and Naughty Dog has improved their systems drastically. I was really looking forward to seeing you cover it.
For all the praise this game gets for its narrative, grounded gameplay, great animations and immersive and tactical ai I really did not click with the ai. The ai does not hold up once I started experiment with combat. They loss their pathfinding, have incredibly slow reaction time to attacks, very bad fov, glitch out of detection and easily distracted by throwing objects. Hopefully much of this is fixed in Part 1 remaster.
I would hope you return, at some point, to look into the AI of TLoU2, which is supposed to be considerably more intelligent.
It's almost exactly the same, which is kind of pathetic considering they had 7 years to improve on it.
Yeah what the other dude said.
@@dyveira Fair enough. Wasn't aware.
@@dyveira What difficulty are you playing on? I found it to be improved by a pretty large margin. I heard them say that they can't eliminate all stupid actions that Ai makes, but it has been DRASTICALLY in my experience.
@@xoreign Yes it's improved, but being having simply better then 7 years old game is not huge praise. It's like saying your new smartphone is good because it have more processing power then 7 years old phone. Even if using the same structure they perform better because of more powerful computers.
And yes, when human see or hear a sound of thrown rock/brick etc then, since humans loves rocks and bricks and etc, they feel imperative to check if said object landed safety in grass and close distance. When performing this action humans never try to look in direction from which rock was thrown. Realism 100%.
And that difficulty comes from using advanced tactics or smarter use of cover or simply better aim? Because the second one is not even AI, you actually need to program something that makes enemies miss, otherwise computer would have 100% accuracy. Sneaking always prove how switchy AI is.
Ellie.got me killed multiple times being in my way
Ok make a stealth check what did you roll
Joel nat 20 yeah they dont see you
Ellie nat 1 oh you stand out in the open
Enemy perception check nat 1 and the guards somehow dont notice you.
Love your videos man. When will I be able to play an AI in Halo 1v1????? I want to get owned. 5 years? That’s my guess. I want AI in first person shooters!!
Recently stumbled upon your channel and I like your content very much so far (especially related to games like this that I've played a lot) so keep up the good work, but one thing that I just can't get out of my head, everytime you say "environment", to me it sounds like "N-Vitamin". It's stuck forever now :(
0:15 Dude... spoilers.
if only this was available for PC... and not shitconsoles... the world would be a better place
Make a vid about The Last of Us 2
TLOU2 has much much better AI
Sadly the gameplay wasn’t that good with the ai and with the e3 downgrade
Please analyze thief ai :D
The best part of Last of Us 2 is that it reminded me how amazing the first game was
The best part of Last of Us 2 is reminding me how badly the gameplay of the first game aged lmao.
@@xoreign First game is still much better
@@recklesflam1ngo968 I respect your opinion if you've played both in their entirety. I haven't finished the 2nd one yet so I cant comment.
Quit wasting your Shivs!
The AI of this game was shit tbh. Ellie would run in front of enemies and BUMP into them and they'd be still looking for Joel like nothing happened lol like she was a ghost
Got me annoyed lol
They did that on purpose. So if Ellie ever ran in front of an enemy due to her programming, the player wouldn't "suffer".
You even watched the video ?
You'd be more annoyed that Ellie would be able to be detected. You'd get annoyed very quickly as you wouldn't be able to control it.
Bad Wolf no
I tried to replay the first game again the other day, ended up giving up as soon as she ran face to face with an enemy for the third time in two minutes, while screaming out "We need to be quiet!" at the top of her lungs.
Such a great game, I wonder if they'll ever make a sequel
Fungal virus huh?
Feel bad about killing people in a survival situation in a us vs them apocalyptic survival situation? Nope, didn't feel bad. If they didn't want to die, shouldn't have fucked with Joel and Ellie, pure and simple.
The ai in the game arent really that smart
But it came out in 2013.
N0t3nl1sh ever seen alien isolation?
Descent had better enemy AI in 1994.
@@candypaint8887 AI serves a purpose, if developers can't make the AI balanced, the game is ruined.The only thing that I don't like about AI is that it couldn't see Ellie because probably they couldn't program it.(or they didn't had time to code it.)
I did not have one good feeling for Ellie or Joel after the game. They turned everything to shit and doomed the entire world, killing many good guys on their way.
not a golf club in sight
It's a good thing they didn't make a sequel, i think they'd screw it up anyway, seeing as most of the crew left naughty dog...
Too bad the sequel shat the bed
The AI in this game is shit. Way to easy to sneak past enemies when stealth works, or you get spotted from behind a wall because the game offers you false stealth encounters where you can’t actually sneak past the enemies without being spotted.
The AI in this Game is trash
I'm just gonna pretend The last of us 2 doesn't exist. Hell, a fucking twelve year old fanfic writer could prolly make a better story.
36 minutes for something that could be summed up as: Lazy and poorly implemented.
It's... literally exceptional and uniquely well done next to contemporaries?