We also tried to create a system that was more realistic. In this game, you'll see the enemy try to flank you or reposition itself to get out of a bad cover spot. Beyond that, you may also see the enemy make mistakes and get itself into situations where the player has the upper hand. There are also new vehicles and new weapons that come into play. A half-track is like a mobile machinegun platform that can carry half a squad of Germans who can dismount and fight as an infantry unit. When you see a half-track or two tearing across the field, and when it stops behind a hedgerow or something, you can guess that it might be spilling out it's compliment of troops. But, maybe it's just setting up the machinegun in a good ambush position, waiting for you round the corner. It's really amazing. As you said, war and human decision making is unpredictable. We tried to capture this unpredictable side of war with our enemy A.I. system.

It becomes tricky to test it and balance it for skill level. Sometimes bad player decisions lead to great enemy A.I. decisions which makes the game even harder. When we have an enemy exploiting the player's weaknesses, it makes it difficult for players with weaknesses. So, we've spent countless hours manipulating the system and testing it.


Prior to working on the Brothers in Arms series, Gearbox had no in-house testing department. We would rely upon the test teams at the publishing house. Today, Gearbox has a full compliment of full-time professional test managers and quality assurance pros -- some of whom have worked as game developers. These managers have a team of 30 or so people who play the game over and over again all day long. They run specific test scenarios and even make adjustments to certain A.I.-related balance mathematics and retest to see what changed. These guys are more than just bug testers, they've affected the quality of the game through lots of hands-on experience and testing of parameter changes.