Speaking in a interview with Official Playstation Magazine, Guerilla Games’ Lead Designer Eric Boltjes said that Killzone Shadow Fall can handle 24 enemy AIs before framerate drops.

The developer is currently hard at work on the PS4-exclusive launch FPS, and Boltjes was keen to point out that the game’s engine is built on top of their previous work, even though much of the engine had to be “re-written”. 

Boltjes is pleased with the power upgrade from PS3 to PS4, not just in terms of graphics or memory, but what gameplay could be achieved with it:

For me as a game designer what I was really interested in was getting more gameplay elements on screen. More enemy types at the same time, more weapon types. Bigger areas. For me that gives us a lot more ingredients to play around with. Previously we were limited. You could have six or seven guys on screen, only two types, and it had to be at a specific range”.

When Boltjes was asked if there was an upper limit to the amount of AIs the engine could take at once, he said “Yes, it’s about 24”. However, he noted that it was about more than just having 24 character models on screen – the complex AI systems employed by each of them is what counts:

“They’re all autonomous, they create their own effects. They’re busy little bees…….as soon as you push it over [24] then we get performance issues”.

What do you think? Will Killzone Shadow Fall’s AIs create more interesting gameplay? Let us know in the comments below.