Call of Duty is betting big on AI. Will it pay off?

pcgamer.com:

The writing is on the walls. Call of Duty is going through a change, and it may actually stick this time.

You can roughly map out the evolution of first-person shooters over the last 1.5 decades with the yearly Call of Duty releases. There was the era where everyone was super-into modern military shooters, followed by a few years when our boots lifted off the ground and started wallrunning or jetpacking. When hero shooters hit big, Treyarch responded with Black Ops 3's unique characters and ultimates. That was fun for a bit, but then the clock reset and Activision thought, hey, maybe World War 2 would be fun again. It wasn't.

This brings us to our current era, the one I believe is on its way out the door(opens in new tab): battle royale. Activision committed to battle royale early and captured a huge audience with its standalone, free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. The most popular way to play CoD in 2022 is in a lobby with 149 other people, something I never imagined in 2007. But now almost three years in, I've noticed a waning interest in the same ol' battle royale and I think Activision has too. Infinity Ward is bringing back battle royale in Warzone 2.0, but at the same time it's going big on its next bet: AI and PvPvE.

If you haven't noticed, there are AI combatants all over Modern Warfare 2. In fact, literally every tentpole mode in Modern Warfare 2 is implementing AI in some way:

We're getting our first taste of CoD's AI push during this weekend's Modern Warfare 2 beta(opens in new tab). In new mode Invasion, a take on Titanfall's Attrition mode, nameless grunts join a large-scale 20v20 team deathmatch where AI kills are worth fewer points than players. I didn't expect much out of Invasion, but it's actually my