It's been a really long time since we posted anything about DNF, so I thought I'd post this. We're happy to confirm that DNF will feature full bot support.

The bots are in and working now. Very well in fact. This was essentially one of the last major hurdles/features in our multiplayer plans.

The bots understand and use our skeletal animation system and are proficient with 2-3 guns at the moment. We expect near full weapon proficiency before Xmas.

You can start a match, select how many bots you want to play against, tweak their settings and have a blast. We've setup games with nothing but bots and watched them fight it out and watched the score distributions.

We were initially a little concerned that getting the bots to UT's level would be difficult, especially with our animation system, but it was surprisingly easy. Jess got them in and online in about 2 weeks. The hard work is done, and now it's just polish issues like teaching them new guns, inventory items, and game types as we go along.

Bots were also a major concern of ours because a lot of fps games have been shipping without them (even Unreal engine based games), and we see bots as significant for the future of multiplayer gaming. We are firmly committed to delivering both a strong multi player experience, as well as single player. Full bot support is a step in that direction.

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George Broussard, 3D Realms