The AI in Horror Game 'Hello Neighbor' Will Learn Your Moves

gaming-stuff (64)in #gaming • 7 years ago (edited)

"It's quiet.. Too quiet.. . Pfft I always wanted to say that."

-MacCready (Fallout 4)

Do you feel like playing something creepy, like a.. Horror game? With an AI that somehow can outsmart you? If you do, guess who you'll be running from in this upcoming horror game--Your neighbor, in a stealth horror game called Hello Neighbor. Only this neighbor is advanced, an advanced AI that can learn your every moves.

The AI I'm talking about is the one on the picture above with the mustache as dashing as Dorian's from Dragon Age. We haven't seen much advanced AI especially in horror games, have we? (Or is it just me?).

So how smart he can be? The AI, or as the developer call him the Neighbor, will learn your every movements, mistakes, actions, decisions, how you outsmarted him before, etc. He will learn from those and then comes up with counter actions. You outsmart him first and you'll be the one who is outsmarted the next. The longer the game goes on, the smarter the Neighbor will be, the more difficult it is to beat him.

Say you are sneaking into his house, planning your next move and escape route. The next thing you'll see when you turn back is not some toilet jumpscare like you probably have seen countless of times in many horror games, instead you'll find yourself trapped, your planned escape way has been blocked. Just like how it goes in this video.

From the video, you can see how the gameplay is 'changing' and you probably feel how suspensful it is already. When the player first enter the Neighbor's house, the hallway is empty and next time he attempt to run that way the Neighbor has already block it. I also a bit surprised to see when the Neighbor jump over the window in front of the player instead of keep chasing from behind toughtlessly.

So are the player's character is the bad guy for sneaking into someone's house? Or is it the Neighbor for having Dorian's mustache? The player's character don't know what's in the basement but for some reason he have to go in there (for the plot sake).

Probably a kidnapping victim that in need to be saved? Or valuable stuff for us to steal? Whatever the Neighbor have in his basement is a secret so we can't tell who the real bad guy is until the player's character get into the basement. It's a secret to everybody.

The Neighbor might not look like much for a scary AI in a horror game, the game itself looks so cheerful for a horror game. But his advanced AI is what makes him creepy enough to make the game as intense as a horror game need to be. Smart is the new creepy.

Hello Neighbor is still in development by Dynamic Pixels with Unreal Engine 4. The game was planned to launch on 29 August but they were having problems and decided to delay instead of releasing a broken game, smart move. Now they plan to launch Hello Neighbor on 8 December 2017 for PC and Xbox One. Sorry, PS4. Maybe some times after that. You can get the alpha here; Hello Neighbor or find it on Steam.