Solving Sokoban using Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning with Landmarks
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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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References · 16
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4 more
- 2019Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning with Advantage-Based Auxiliary Rewardscited by 38
- 2018Learning to Search with MCTSnetscited by 32
- 2021Subgoal Search For Complex Reasoning Taskscited by 21
- 2019Hierarchical Policy Learning is Sensitive to Goal Space Designcited by 8
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