A YouTuber by the name Dante Ravioli has uploaded a video with the question: is it possible to beat the whole of Resident Evil 5 with just the AI companion, Sheva? Well, the video itself is interesting to say the least.
resident evil 5 steam
The video itself is an interesting take on RE5's gameplay, considering Sheva has a few... quirks that make trying to beat the game with only her an even more difficult thing than you think. Here's the relatively short 12-minute video if you want to check it out:
According to Ravioli, the biggest issues with Sheva's AI are follows. First and the most important: she takes damage from literally ANYTHING in the game. Even the tiniest, weakest enemies in Resident Evil 5 can deal damage to her, and if she dies, it's game over. That's the biggest hurdle that the YouTuber faced with this challenge, though it's obviously far from the only one.
The next problem is how she heals the player character even when you don't need it. Then, she wastes all of your best ammo even on the most significant enemies. If you've played a Resident Evil game before, you should know that resources in a game like this are extremely scarce.
Ravioli began his playthrough and immediately ran into more issues. During the first enemy encounter, he noticed how Sheva's AI was too hesitant to take the shot. This is even if he technically can put her on an aggressive mode as part of her main gameplay mechanics, and is something that will always play out during the course of the playthrough.
He then found out something new in this classic Capcom game: you can actually skip the first enemy you deal with and move on, as that was Sheva's AI did. But that will be one of the few instances when her programming would be "useful," in a sense of the word.
At the end, the playthrough showcased just how limited Sheva's AI is, and how the performance was inconsistent throughout the game. He hasn't beaten the game yet as of this writing, but did promise a Part 2 video coming soon.
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Why Is Video Game AI Always So Bad?
This Resident Evil 5 experiment now begs a new question: why is video game AI always so dumb and bad?
So many games these days (especially open-world ones) talk about how their NPCs allow for the crafting of "living and breathing" environments. But if you go deeper, you'll notice that these characters more or less go on pre-defined activity loops. And if you actually have to use them as a complement to your player character (like Sheva in RE5), that programming unravels.
A Reddit user by the name Masterpicker posted on the PC Gaming subreddit about why game AI is still so bad, all despite the growing power of new hardware. One user answered that it's all about priorities. Game developers could either prioritize smart AI, or other similarly important game mechanics (i.e. the world, combat, etc. Most of the time, they just relegate the AI to its most basic iteration because there's always an important game feature that has to be worked on.
Furthermore, the same user said that advanced video game AI (i.e. one that uses something like machine learning) is just so difficult to do. Another user replied to this, saying that there should always be a balance. A developer can make the machine learning AI "want" to beat the player, but also has to make beating the AI fun in its own right. These two are already conflicting concepts of their own.
TLDR: even modern game AI is still too dumb, despite hardware being more powerful than before.
Related: Here's How The Resident Evil 4 Remake Would Look Like In Unreal Engine 5
