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AI is significantly shaping the future of all industries, and the gaming industry is no exception. While the use of AI has been a long-time practice in the gaming industry, in recent times, this application has increased, especially in the first-person shooting or FPS genre.
The increasing AI effects have been felt in the FPS games for a long time, but with the release of Black Ops 6 Zombies, things have come to notice more prominently. While fans have rejected these in most cases, it hints at the dominance of AI in shaping the future of FPS games.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is one of the most anticipated releases of 2024. With the innovation of Omni movement and the addition of the Zombies mode, this game has heightened the standard of Black Ops games to the next level. However, with time, some instances came to light that suggested that a few elements in the Zombies mode are designed using AI.
The first thing that Activision was accused of designing using AI was the poster of the zombie Santa. In this poster, the zombie Santa had six fingers, which immediately created controversy among fans. While some fans defended Activision, most of them were certain that Zombie Santa was made using AI.
Things didn’t end here. Soon after that, an image of a gloved hand holding ‘Gobblegum’ came under suspicion. While some players once again pointed out that this hand has more fingers than human hands can have, others stated that the contrast is also suspicious, especially the way the gobble gum and the smoke are disjointed.
Recently, once again, Activision was accused of the same when, in December 2024, the poster of The Tomb came to light. Players immediately started talking about this Zombies map poster to be made using generative AI. Anyway, in any of these above-mentioned cases, Activision didn’t admit any AI use.
However, this back-to-back use of AI in Black Ops 6 Zombies clearly stated that Activision is exploring a new way of designing Call of Duty games, which will likely influence other developers.
Well, AI has always been a part of FPS games like Call of Duty. Be it the NPCs or the AI shooting bots, these are all artificial intelligence. The point here is these are all very predictable. In every Call of Duty game, the bots are easy to kill as they never adapt to the strategies of human players and fight accordingly.
Now, with these progressing AI innovations, it looks like things will soon reach a point where bots made using adaptive AI will learn the moves and strategies of players to give them a hard fight. This will not only open the door for more engaging gameplay but also will make players interested in fighting bots.
The adaptive AI concept is gradually entering the FPS gaming genre. The basic part of this is that AI-generated bots will interact with the environment to adapt to new methods of shooting. Additionally, they can track players’ actions and preferences to create a more customized gameplay for them.
If players keep using a particular type of weapon or strategy for a long time, the AI will shift to a defensive approach and develop a new fighting style. Not only that, they will learn from mistakes to renew their strategies just like human players do to make the gameplay real, unpredictable, intense, and more rewarding. It will upscale the difficulty level as it suits players’ skills. Therefore, games designed by AI will be more suitable for every type of gamer, including newcomers.
Aside from that, when it comes to designing posters or maps using AI, this reduces the effort from the developer team and makes these more detailed and attractive. AI-generated FPS maps will have locations designed more realistically, with everything placed properly. Of course, some threats and mistakes remain, but using AI will make game development a lot easier for developers.
Precisely, AI is emerging as a game-changer in the world of FPS games. Despite gamers’ disapproval of the use of AI in gaming, it can create personalized yet intelligent responses in real time. The best part is that using AI to design games will be budget-friendly in many cases.
