by B. Ender

Created on: April 30, 2008   Last Updated: May 01, 2008

Many of you have probably thought about exactly what would be next in the video game market. How will the AI act? What new effects will be available? In this article I will try to predict what new stuff will be available in the games of near future, and maybe even serve as guidelines for video game creators.

One thing you might see in the future is enhanced AI, or artificial intelligence. Each character in the game world you see will interact more with each other and their environments. You might be walking down the street, and in front of you a man suddenly steals a woman's purse. The woman, realizing what just happened, would cry for help and possibly run for the robber. Other people in the area would look around to see the robber and some of the heroic ones might even stop the thief. You had nothing to do with what happened but it still was so realistic and exciting. You could also interfere, too. You might chase the thief down and retrieve the purse. The woman would thank you and you would count as a hero to her. If you ever saw her again in the game world, she would recognize you and act warmly towards you. People in games of the future won't just be walking automatons, they would seem to be actual people.

Another thing you will most likely see is enhanced physics effects. Let's have another scenario: You're a trained assassin ordered to take out a man who lives on the 20th floor of a building (you'll see why the height of the building was in my description). You kick the door open, and it breaks with extreme realism: the wood actually splinters and reacts realistically to the kick. The man in the room looks up in surprise and runs to another room (another enhanced AI feature). You run after him and realize that the man has picked up a knife and lunges for you. You step to the side and the knife embeds itself into a glass table in the room. The knife easily causes shards of glass to break and fall with stunning realism. You eventually grab the man, and in an act of desperation, through the man through the wall-sized glass window of his house. Once again, the glass shatters with unbelievable realism and the man falls to his death, also falling like a real man, not just like another solid object. The processing power required for this scene is greater than most people have, but we are making great strides toward being able to make games with physics like that.

Of course, I needn't mention that graphics will also be better than today's, but I don't think I need to because of course it'll get better. You would see more objects in a scene, more dense vegetation in the jungle of a battlefield, more realistic explosions and fire effects, and enhanced lighting and shadows. I hope that all I have talked about will come true and be even better than I would've expected!

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