Want to get an idea what approach Gearbox Software is taking with the Aliens A.I in Colonial Marines? You'll likely get a good idea by playing Borderlands 2.
During an interview with the studio's Steve Gibson, the VP of Marketing revealed that the developer's shared central resources in A.I and pathfinding meant that the returning FPS's wildlife adopt routines and strategies developed for Aliens: Colonial Marines - from movements to communication.
Explaining how the closeness of the titles releases benefited each other's development, Gibson illustrated the point with what we saw during our hands-on.
"What you probably noticed was the Stalkers you ran into early on - those guys that jump at you and jump up on areas - very similar to how you imagine the Alien and that A.I system would navigate the world," he explained.
"And on the other side is how some of the Aliens, they communicate with each other because they're a smart breed, you see how a lot of the [Borderlands 2] A.I communicate with each other. Robots healing each other, Skags calling each other in...there's a lot of benefits to having shared central resource of guys that understand A.I and understand path-finding, so it's been great."
So I got my ass handed to me [in the demo] because of Aliens?
"Yea." [laughs]
The interview formed part of our hands-on with the title, and GRTV snagged a separate chat with Gibson about correcting the problems with the original game.