Intelligent Behavioral Design of Non-player Characters in a FPS Video Game Through PSO

Although barely explored so far, swarm intelligence can arguably have a profound impact on video games; for instance, as a simple yet effective approach for the realistic intelligent behavior of Non-Player Characters (NPCs). In this context, we describe the application of particle swarm optimization to the behavioral design of NPCs in a first-person shooter video game. The feasibility and performance of our method is analyzed through some computer experiments. They show that the proposed approach performs very well and can be successfully used in a fully automatic (i.e., without any human player) and efficient way.