It's crucial for a stealth-based game to maintain a sense of realism, especially with AI interactions. AI perception models have grown past a vision cone and hearing radius, which means they need to be programmed to react the same way a human would to a wide range of stimuli in a variety of simulations.

In this 2014 GDC session, Ubisoft Toronto's Martin Walsh discusses the AI stealth models used on Splinter Cell: Blacklist and the reason for incorporating them, as well as highlighting issues that came up during development.

Walsh describes Ubisoft's overall strategy for giving consistent feedback to the player while maintaining realism, citing the importance of realistic perception and behavior from AI but also acknowledging that players need clear feedback to understand the model and the state of the AI.

AI programmers may appreciate that they can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!

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