It's easy to find hidden technical details in a ga's developnt, but understanding exactly how they're implented is much harder to figure out in a short period of ti.
In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, the biggest technical feature was the sheer number of randomized story elents.
How exactly did they manage to present dozens or even hundreds of narrative threads within such a small file size?
In theory, that should be impossible.
Unless... there's so kind of black-box tech they don't fully understand.
And it took Surei Electronics' technical team about half a day to crack it.
"Director, Gastar Electronic Entertainnt added a type of program to the ga that can continuously learn and evolve. This program consus a terrifying amount of computing power. The better your computer, the more this system can show off what it's capable of. This learning ability—"
The head of the ga developnt departnt frowned. "Keep it simple. I don't understand your technical jargon."
"Uh, okay. Simply put, the NPCs in the ga can generate their own storylines. It's completely random, which is why each of us experiences totally different side stories while playing Assassin's Creed: Revelations, even if we're following the sa main plot."
"You're telling ... the characters in the ga are alive? They can create their own narratives?"
"Yes... though not exactly to that extre. There are limits, and those limits depend on the hardware running the ga."
"What's that got to do with hardware? Is this ga very demanding?"
"No, the visual optimization is excellent. For graphics, it only uses about half of your GPU's performance."
"Then how is hardware a factor?"
"It's the random story generation that's hardware-dependent."
This director wasn't exactly a technical expert. His role was more managerial. He didn't need to act as a ga producer—that was soone else's job. He just had to manage the team well.
So he didn't completely understand the more technical terms.
"Director, let show you," one employee said, excitedly carrying over a desktop PC.
That computer was among the highest-spec models in the departnt.
He quickly hooked it up to a monitor and keyboard, booted it, and launched Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
As soon as the ga started, the desktop's fans began spinning rapidly.
The noise imdiately caught the director's attention.
One of the employees quickly explained, "Director, this is the machine running at full capacity. Both the CPU and GPU are maxed out."
"This is that random generation function you were talking about?"
"Yes, that's it. The system is running full-force calculations. The results of those calculations are what power the NPCs' random events in the ga."
As the ga screen loaded, the employee controlled Ezio to wander through the city.
Even during this brief wandering, the director noticed how lively and reactive the surrounding NPCs were.
One NPC tripped by accident, then got up and muttered a curse. The voice clearly ca from a procedurally generated audio clip, not a human voice actor.
A street vendor was selling goods nearby, while a sneaky kid dashed forward when the vendor wasn't looking, grabbed two pieces of fruit, and sprinted off.
"Hey! You damn brat!" the vendor shouted.
Everything felt incredibly vivid. Though there were still a few uncanny or rough spots in the animation, the ga world felt genuinely alive—not just so artificial setting.
"Director, do you see it?"
"These NPCs are incredibly vivid," he replied.
"And that's not even the best part. The key is that you never know what's going to happen outside the main storyline."
The employee then had Ezio start sprinting through the streets.
Even this affected the world around him.
So NPCs began muttering about how he was kicking up dust, causing them to cough.
Others yelled at him to stop running or face consequences.
Ezio stopped and turned to face one of the shouters.
That NPC instantly backed away—very human-like—though due to it being a ga, the model glitched and his head clipped into a wall.
It broke the imrsion slightly, but not badly.
"Ah, sir, I was just kidding earlier..."
The NPC backed off nervously and ran away, clearly not wanting to confront Ezio.
His behavior didn't feel like a pre-scripted response. He felt... real.
"How... how is this even possible?" the director muttered, finally understanding just how impressive the system was.
"It's powered by the player's hardware. We tested it. On lower-spec PCs, NPC behavior is noticeably less dynamic."
"No, I an—how did they even do this? Why do the characters feel so real?"
"...We can analyze the program, but we can't recreate it. Without access to the ga's source code, we can't fully understand or replicate it."
"So... can we develop sothing like this? Now that we've seen the direction, can we explore this too?"
The room fell silent.
"No one? None of you can say anything?"
"Director, it's not that simple. If programs like this were that easy to create, there wouldn't be any technological barriers left in the industry."
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