Gamers will be able to compete against profiles based on friends

Nov 14, 2013 08:24 GMT  ·  By

Video game developer Rare says that it is creating an entirely new cloud-based Artificial Intelligence system called Champion for Kinect Sports: Rivals in order to make the whole experience more challenging for players.

Danny Isaac, an executive producer working on the title, says that the game will basically build a player profile, which will then be uploaded and will be used by other versions of the game to power the AI.

Cloud technology means that thousands of such profiles can be stored and Kinect Sports: Rivals can download any of them to use locally, based on the skill of the player who is currently playing the game.

The entire concept is very similar to the Drivatar system used in Forza Motorsport 5, another Xbox One exclusive experience.

Isaac tells The Official Xbox Magazine that, “Sports are so much more meaningful when you’re playing against people you know, obviously, whether they’re your friends or Rivals. Rather than just have random AI characters, we have this thing where you can scan yourself in, so that the Champion becomes you.”

He adds, “it looks at your skill level and how well you’ve played, so when I play against you your character will be there and it’ll perform at your sort of skill level as well. So, even when I’m playing by myself and you’re offline, it feels like I’m playing around with my friends and family.”

The developer says that the Kinect Sports: Rivals cloud-based Champion system will capture less detail than the Drivatar for Forza 5.

The Rare developed game was initially set to be launched alongside the Xbox One, but Microsoft has delayed it into 2014 in order to give the studio more time to polish the experience.

A Preseason version of the experience is at the moment set to appear on November 22, on the new console.