I know very little about AI and game mechanics, but knowing how early Fromsoft games were (e.g., Kingsfield), a basic AI in Elden Ring is very unsurprising. That's not necessarily a bad thing!
My vote for "high tech game AI" would probably be this old mod for Fallout 4:
>PANPC (Pack Attack NPC Edition) is a unique scripted AI management system for Fallout 4. Rather than treating each enemy as an individual proximity-based reaction agent (basically, a mine with a gun), this system generates social feedback between NPCs belonging to the same or allied factions.
>Enemies factor the overhaul health and success of their “team” into their tactical decisions, adjusting their strategies based on their social and threat awareness. As a result, they will switch between ranged, melee, defensive, and offensive tactics based on their perceptions of team advantage and individual risk.
1. Make individual agent AIs that can act on their own.
2. Make squad AIs that can influence their agent AIs.
3. Add even more AIs on top, like a scenario AI.
Each of these AIs can be a state machine, behavior tree, rule system or goal system. They’re exactly equivalent and can be translated into each other mechanically. So the whole hierarchical AI is equivalent to one big state machine.
Such a hierarchcal AI is how most RTS games work, and also the famous Falcon 4 campaign system which could simulate a realistic modern war scenario on the Korean peninsula in realtime down to individual units (although collapsed into higher level 'group AIs' when far away from the player) and all that on a 1998 PC!
FromSoftware really puts design first, so it doesn't surprise me they use a classic AI and then leave it up to the designers to craft memorable experiences.
My favorite high tech AI was Crysis. Might have been an update after it was originally released. The enemies will aggressively attack but then get quiet after you've taken cover. Eventually you'll realize some of them are flanking you while others keep suppressing fire on you to stop you from moving. You can hear them yelling to one another. Very cool touches.
That reminds me of First Encounter Assault Recon, where the AI had fairly simple rules, which worked well with the level design to make the enemies seem intelligent, especially as Monolith added chatter to make them seem even smarter. And then one of the expansions had a bunch of open areas and the AI didn't handle those well so the trick didn't work.
Far Cry 2 had a similarly sophisticated system, if not more sophisticated.
Not only would they call out to each other, they would attempt to carry off wounded allies and call out to each other in native language (set in africa, so I understood it).
They also adjusted their techniques based on the reputation level of the player.
F.E.A.R 2 was released on the PS3 and Xbox 360, both of which have laughably low specs by modern standards. When you have to create dynamic experiences out of a potato you are forced to get creative and that involves squeezing a lot of juice out of basic techniques.
Transformer based AI had to wait until the world's compute capacity reached a certain level to become feasible.
both of which have laughably low specs by modern standards ... potato
I have the opposite view, modern games require laughably high specs for what experiences they are achieving, look at what great dynamic experiences (games) can be achieved on older generations of gaming hardware.
Transformer based AI does not magically equal great dynamic experiences, good game design does. Sometimes a basic technique is more effective then a complex one.
Dynamic experience wise what is really the upgrade between ps3 call of duty and current day, aside from graphic fidelity that has increased there is parkour now. But mirror's edge shows that was possible at the time too. Seems it's just consuming a LOT more resources for not a lot of benefit. If you run a ps3 emulator with a modded game with high res textures & shaders you're still using 1/4 of the resources the modern re-release does.
squeezing a lot of juice out of basic techniques
"limitations breed creativity" I think this is one of the reasons why games on limited hardware are often better games, it requires the game designer to choose between prioritizing the game's core or other distractions like graphics.
