If you ever wanted to be the boss in a Soulslike game where the enemy learns and adapts to your attack patterns, Phantom Blade Zero might be the game you’re looking for.
Speaking to PC Gamer magazine (via GamesRadar+), the game’s director, Qiwei Liang, discussed some of the ways the gameplay will change at high difficulty modes, namely the highest one, called “Hellwalker.”
Given that Liang doesn’t want the game to be considered a typical Soulslike, despite borrowing heavily from the genre, it makes sense to draw inspiration for how some boss fights at Hellwalker difficulty work from other sources.
In the case of one in particular, called Huangxing, it takes inspiration from the fighting game genre, most famously the 2013 Killer Instinct, where its AI will analyze the evolving situation and the player’s behavior, so it can change its actions accordingly.
Analyzing And Adapting To The Player
According to Liang, at any difficulty setting other than the highest, Huangxing will behave like a standard Soulslike or action game boss, with predetermined combos for the player to figure out via trial and error as they throw themselves at it over and over.
However, at Hellwalker difficulty, that won’t work so well, because, as Liang puts it, S-Game wanted to “borrow a concept from fighting games and incorporate it into his AI.”
Like most fighting game AI, at that highest difficulty, Huangxing will “analyze the situation he’s in and whether it’s to his advantage or disadvantage,” and, based on that, use different attacks accordingly.
…We have a state we call ‘lucky draw’ where if he lands a hit he’ll continue a combo, but if it doesn’t hit, he’s gonna do something else. He tries to use the result of his last attack to determine what to do next. – Qiwei Liang
It sounds like it won’t be as robust as we’ve seen before, with the most well-known and fleshed-out example probably being the 2013 Killer Instinct’s Shadow Lab mode, where the AI can actually analyze the player’s style to replicate it, right down to their mistakes, and put it up against other players’ shadows online, also similar to how Amiibo figures are used in the Super Smash Bros. series.
It still remains to be seen just how sophisticated this system for boss AI in Phantom Blade Zero will be, but it definitely sounds like players won’t be able to approach these fights in the same way they might be used to from standard Soulslike games.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
