It will soon be possible for players to take on DeepMind’s StarCraft II AI. Blizzard and Alphabet will be testing out the AlphaStar AI in a select number of public matches, giving the AI an opportunity to showcase its skills against human players. It’s certainly not going to be easy trying to defeat the AI in this game.
That’s because AlphaStar has racked up the knowledge of playing the game that’s equivalent to 200 years of playing StarCraft II. This won’t be the AI’s first match with human players. It has already beaten a team of professional players by an impressive 10-1 earlier this year.
Seeing as how it was able to decimate the professional team, it goes without saying that the casual StarCraft II player isn’t going to have much of a chance against AlphaStar. Only a small number of public matches will be conducted initially with select players in Europe. The trial will be completely blind so players won’t know that they have been matched with the AI.
This is to ensure that all games played against AI are played under the same conditions. Losing or winning the game against AlphaStar will affect a player’s MMR much like a match against human players would.