There are two main threats to the player in the lower levels of the Aegis: the Rots, who occasionally break through the mine tunnels, attracted by the strong smell of extracted Vitae, and the Black Guards, the overseers who ensure that the rules and protocols like the Implantation Ceremony are properly observed by the Subsumed.

Black Guards use Hover Sentinels, drone-drawn hovercraft coaches, to quickly navigate through the Aegis:

In case of a trigger event, a Hover Sentinel is spawned outside of the player’s view and then navigated to an anchor point nearby, where the Black Guard dismounts to approach its target, like the Rots.

To test this, I had to ensure that both Black Guard and Rots properly detect, approach, and attack their targets. While fleshing out their behavior with triggers and behavior trees and observing the outcome closely from the editor’s scene view, I managed to capture a cinematic shot:

The initial Black Guard model was a German officer from Synty Studio’s POLYGON War pack, showing hints of Third Reich symbols on his arm, collar and hat. I have since removed those symbols, because I generally like the authoritative and frightening look of the uniform in combination with the gas mask and its eye-concealing glass (which seems stereotypical for police, at least US cops), but I don’t want to have it intentionally associated with WW2.

The melee attacks and reactions when two NPCs fight are fully animation-controlled. But when the VR player attacks, they expect feedback matching to their movements. Therefore, both NPCs have active ragdolls. This causes some interesting situations when the fast attack swing animation and the corresponding ragdoll limb movement hits an enemy (click to play):