Will AI have a positive or negative influence on multiplayer games?

[Marcus]

Soon enough, AI will be good enough to play complex multiplayer games at a high level. Not just as individual opponents, but as coordinated teammates that can communicate, strategize, and adapt in real time.

What will the consequences be?

Imagine you're playing a 4v4 multiplayer game with three of your friends. You think you're facing another group of human players. Instead, it's one human player supported by three AI-controlled teammates who absolutely obliterate you and your buddies.

At first this might sound like cheating, but what if the game allows it? What if AI companions become as common as voice chat?

I can also imagine economic consequences. If AI agents become good enough, they could farm resources, level accounts, participate in player-driven economies, etc.

The technology seems inevitable. The interesting question isn't whether AI will be able to play these games, but how game developers will choose to integrate or restrict it.

How do you think multiplayer gaming changes once AI-controlled teammates and opponents become indistinguishable from human players?

[Oyster Sauce]

The norm for games now is to have players stomp computers disguised as fake players to build up good feelies and get them to keep playing.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

MMO race to world first competitions might require a livestream camera of every player to make sure that there weren't AI characters dodging all of the AoEs, executing all of the mechanics perfectly, etc.

[J1M]

MMO race to world first competitions might require a livestream camera of every player to make sure that there weren't AI characters dodging all of the AoEs, executing all of the mechanics perfectly, etc.

Would be more interesting to see the 'race' include an all-AI team.

Also, [healbot joke].

[UltraFan123]

I'm pretty sure that one day the kids will be making jokes about how he wishes that his ****** human buddy who doesn't know how to aim was a smart AI instead.

But in all seriousness, I imagine that most of your projections for future multi-player may be accurate, except for the "AI players will take away resources from the human players" part because I can also predict that any dev who allows it will immediately become quite unpopular.

I predict instead that AI players will have their own resources given to them by the devs directly so that the actual in-game resources remain entirely for the real human players.

What I also foresee is that the AI players will either stagnate or advance depending on the progress of the human players, since many devs - especially those of shooters - tend to be obsessed with "balance" and stuff like that.

[rusty_shackleford]

MMO race to world first competitions might require a livestream camera of every player to make sure that there weren't AI characters dodging all of the AoEs, executing all of the mechanics perfectly, etc.

we already had players using rotation bots at least as far back as TBC

[rusty_shackleford]

If you can give me a smart enough AI with an enjoyable personality I'd play games with it, but it would need to be fast enough to write scripts on the fly to respond to situations.
We're not there yet, maybe 3-5 years.

[Norfleet]

MMO race to world first competitions might require a livestream camera of every player to make sure that there weren't AI characters dodging all of the AoEs, executing all of the mechanics perfectly, etc.

The AI will just fake that, too.

[fork]

"AI" will have a negative influence on everything, and you're asking about multiplayer games?

[DecadeRiptide]

I just think it would make for more interesting npcs and potentially interesting quests that can be generated on the fly. I couldn't care less about having 'fake players' like those in escape from tarkov

[Eyestabber]

Wake me up when "AI" can play ANY game that requires a functional human brain to play. Computer opponents in 2026 strategy games cheat as badly as they did in 1996 and require the same crutches (production/research bonuses/free units/full knowledge of the map etc). I had this discussion with both gemni and Chat GPT, and it's quite interesting. Gemni actually admits AI is fake and useless while JeetPeetTee attempts to reframe the question as "well, 4x games have just too much variables, bo-ho, it's so unfaaaaair! AI can beat you in chess, chud", missing or misconstruing the point entirely. AI opponents in multiplayer strategy games are nothing but speed bumps for the various human players to exploit.

[Norfleet]

Wake me up when "AI" can play ANY game that requires a functional human brain to play.

There are NO commercial multiplayer-centric games that require a functional human brain to play. If they did, they would not be commercially successful, because most people do not have one. In pretty much all of those games, you would almost certainly prefer bot teammates under your control than randos that aren't.