One of the best sessions I attended at GDC this year was on the AI pathfinding of Ellie, everyone’s favorite surrogate daughter from The Last of Us. Admittedly, “AI pathfinding” sounds sedative, but actually proves to be enlightening. It turns out the way Ellie’s movements, shooting abilities, and bad jokes respond to Joel were a large part of why you kinda almost felt paternal or maternal for a game character. I wrote about it here. 

Not that that matters anymore, as now you can go watch the whole thing at Gamasutra, who released the video from the paywall today for free. The speaker is Naughty Dog engineer Max Dyckhoff, who does a fine job of explaining how all that tech resulted in feels. 

Its a great chance to get a peek under the hood of one of the best games of last year, so go and watch HERE.