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Solving Sokoban using Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning with Landmarks

arXiv 2504.04366 ↗First posted 6 Apr 2025cs.AIcited by 1

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Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a novel hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) framework that performs top-down recursive planning via learned subgoals, successfully applied to the complex combinatorial puzzle game Sokoban. Our approach constructs a six-level policy hierarchy, where each higher-level policy generates subgoals for the level below. All subgoals and policies are learned end-to-end from scratch, without any domain knowledge. Our results show that the agent can generate long action sequences from a single high-level call. While prior work has explored 2-3 level hierarchies and subgoal-based planning heuristics, we demonstrate that deep recursive goal decomposition can emerge purely from learning, and that such hierarchies can scale effectively to hard puzzle domains.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 16 of its 23 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 6 Apr 2025.

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16 of 23 references.

References · 16

  1. 2019Mastering Atari, Go, Chess and Shogi by Planning with a Learned Modelcited by 1,327
  2. 2017Hindsight Experience Replaycited by 1,096
  3. 2018QT-Opt: Scalable Deep Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Based Robotic Manipulationcited by 730
  4. 2017Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a General Reinforcement Learning Algorithmcited by 723
  5. 2016The Option-Critic Architecturecited by 433
  6. 2017FeUdal Networks for Hierarchical Reinforcement Learningcited by 328
  7. 2020Agent57: Outperforming the Atari Human Benchmarkcited by 300
  8. 2018Learning to Adapt in Dynamic, Real-World Environments Through Meta-Reinforcement Learningcited by 270
  9. 2016Value Iteration Networkscited by 158
  10. 2024Beyond A*: Better Planning with Transformers via Search Dynamics Bootstrappingcited by 89
  11. 2019An investigation of model-free planningcited by 64
  12. 2021Landmark-Guided Subgoal Generation in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learningcited by 46
4 more
  1. 2019Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning with Advantage-Based Auxiliary Rewardscited by 38
  2. 2018Learning to Search with MCTSnetscited by 32
  3. 2021Subgoal Search For Complex Reasoning Taskscited by 21
  4. 2019Hierarchical Policy Learning is Sensitive to Goal Space Designcited by 8

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