How do you simulate a living, breathing ocean with thousands of lifeforms? 🌊

A developer explains how an entity-component system (ECS) architecture was chosen to simulate a dense ocean ecosystem with thousands of lifeforms. Rather than relying on large class hierarchies, the team condensed behavior into smaller packages, enabling individual AI behaviors for dolphins, turtles, fish, and other species. This approach allows layered complexity over time, including reactive behaviors like fish dispersing from predators, which the team believes would not have been feasible without this architectural choice.