Build your game. We've taken care of enemy AI

Create engaging top-down shooter gameplay without spending months building enemy behavior, combat, navigation, and supporting systems from scratch.

Top-Down Shooter AI & Starter Kit provides a ready-to-customize foundation for creating tactical encounters with ranged and melee enemies. Enemies can patrol, detect the player, react to danger, use cover, investigate suspicious activity, flank the player, retreat, and return to the last combat area after losing sight of their target. Use the included prototype as the foundation for your own action game, or integrate individual systems into an existing Unity project.

Intelligent Enemy AI

Enemies do more than simply chase the player. They evaluate the current situation and switch between patrol, combat, cover, investigation, retreat, and pursuit behaviors. Enemy behavior includes:

• Patrol routes and waiting points

• Player detection and combat engagement

• Reaction to nearby gunfire and suspicious activity

• Tracking of the player’s last known position

• Return to the last combat location after losing the target

• Ranged and melee enemy roles

• Smooth character rotation and movement-direction blending

• Aim validation before firing

• Tactical repositioning and retreat

• NavMesh-based navigation

• Multi-platform support (keyboard + gamepad + touchscreen)

Adaptive Melee Enemies

Melee enemies are not forced to rush directly into gunfire.

After receiving ranged damage, they can leave the player’s line of fire and search for an alternative NavMesh route. This tactical reaction can occur after the first ranged hit and again when health reaches a critical level.

The result is more varied melee behavior:

• Direct pursuit when an attack is reasonable

• Side movement under dangerous ranged fire

• Alternative routes for closing the distance

• Flanking attempts instead of constant frontal attacks

• Standard melee attacks once the target is within range

Ranged Combat

Ranged enemies smoothly turn toward the player and wait until they are properly aimed before firing. The system supports:

• Automatic and single-shot weapons

• Shotgun behavior

• Shell-by-shell shotgun reloading

• Reload and pump actions

• Fire-rate control

• Line-of-sight validation

• Continued target tracking during weapon actions

• Combat from seated cover positions

Behavior-Based Architecture

Enemy decisions are organized as reusable behavior nodes with shared AI context data. The system separates conditions and actions such as:

• Patrol

• Move to target

• Shoot

• Retreat

• Investigate

• Use cover

• Return to the last fight position

• Perform a melee flank

This structure makes the AI easier to understand, modify, and extend for the needs of your own project.

Player and Gameplay Systems

The package also includes supporting systems for building a playable top-down shooter prototype:

• Top-down character control

• Shooting and melee combat

• Health and damage

• Healing

• Weapon handling

• Character selection

• Level selection

• UI systems

• Transparent walls that prevent the environment from hiding the player

• Death and animation-state handling

• Patrol and cover point placement tools

Easy Level Setup

Create encounters by placing navigation and behavior points directly in the scene:

1. Prepare the NavMesh

2. Add patrol points

3. Add and configure cover points

4. Assign enemy weapons and settings

5. Press Play

Enemy behavior is controlled through editable components and serialized settings, allowing you to tune detection, movement, combat, cover usage, health thresholds, and other parameters without rewriting the entire system.

Designed for Customization

The included visuals and gameplay represent a functional prototype and can be replaced with your own:

• Characters

• Animations

• Weapons

• Levels

• Effects

• UI

• Audio

• Game rules

Use the complete starter kit to begin a new project or extract the systems you need for an existing top-down shooter.

Main Features

• Tactical ranged and melee enemy AI

• Patrol, detection, pursuit, and investigation

• Last-known-position tracking

• Dynamic cover-point system

• Standing and seated cover types

• Attacking from cover

• Melee flanking behavior

• Tactical retreat and repositioning

• Shotgun reloading behavior

• Smooth rotation and directional animation blending

• Aim-before-fire validation

• NavMesh-based movement

• Character and level selection

• Health, damage, and healing

• Transparent obstacle system

• Clean and extendable C# architecture

Spend less time rebuilding common shooter systems and more time creating the game that makes your project unique.