DICE sees "potential" in Titanfall's cloud-based AI troop mechanic

Titanfall's spawning AI troops add weight to its online encounters, and while Battlefield 4 certainly won't be using cloud-powered fodder for your team to shoot at, DICE's creative director Lars Gustavsson has said he sees "potential" in the system.

If you're unaware of Titanfall's AI troop mechanic, you can read all about it in my hands-on impressions from gamescom.

Now, speaking with OXM, Gustavsson has chipped in with his own thoughts on Respawn's tech and how it might appeal to DICE down the line.

He stressed that DICE toyed with AI companions in the form of Battlefield 2142's drones and that the studio has pondered including computer-controlled paratroopers in the series, "It was quite, in our world, unorthodox to develop a small AI drone that you could have with you in Battlefield 2142. You could have it as a battle upgrade, floating over you and shooting enemies. And we've been talking about being able to place AI paratroopers in there on the battle."

Could such tech be used to flesh out Battlefield's solider count to an insane degree? "It's not something we have built for Battlefield 4," he continued, "with 64 players we feel that there's more than enough in our world. In a co-op experience, [AI support ] is super cool, but in multiplayer, we've had feedback that people prefer dying from real human bullets, rather than [at the hands of] an AI that's too accurate or something. It just feels more fair if I get killed by a human player.

"So I'm not saying that we're not going to do it in the future, I see potential in it. But based on the feedback we've had and the huge number of players we already have on the battlefield, we've stayed away from it for now.

"For the moment, we're moving ahead with our traditional setup. But as always, whatever is best for the game, whatever is best for the customer, we look into sooner or later. And with the power of Frostbyte, and the power of multiple teams working within EA on Frostbyte, we are constantly looking into new possibilities, so... It's definitely interesting. We'll see what happens down the road."

Would you like to see AI bots added in to Battlefield's multiplayer? Let us know below.