ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the buddy artificial intelligence (AI). The whole game focuses on relationships between characters and none more strongly than that of Ellie and Joel, the player’s avatar. Ellie accompanies the player throughout most of the game, and AI programmers needed the player to love her companionship. Ellie is new to the world outside the military safe zone in which she grew up and new to the brutality and violence of the infected and humanity at large. She is seeing landscapes, cities, and actions as the player would, instead of through the world weary eyes of Joel. If a buddy is close to the player character, she is less likely to run into problems with enemy AI. Additionally, if she is far away from the player, she is easily forgotten, and the player will feel alone in the world, which is contrary to programmer's storytelling goals for the game.
