Open World Outpost Level
Level Design
SUMMARY/IDEA
I really wanted to make a third person perspective game with stealth as the main gameplay mechanic. I fell in love with Assassin’s Creed, especially Odyssey, whereas the player may choose to scout an area, either go in and out fast or take their time and play slow.
It also led to a replayable experience.
SPECIFICATIONS
Engine/Tools: Unreal Engine (4.26.2), Maya 2022, Mixamo, Blockout Tools Plugin, Advanced Locomotion System.
Time: 6 Weeks (halftime)
Genre: Third Person Perspective
Reference game(s): Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
OVERVIEW
GAMEPLAY MECHANICS
BUSH HIDING
To stay out of enemies' sight, the player may hide in bushes.
I also added a custom depth when the player enters a bush. This adds a nice feedback for the player to indicate that they are currently hiding.
ASSASSINATE
Approach an enemy from behind to assassinate them. Assassinating enemies means they die instantly instead of just attacking the enemy, this is a risk & reward, whereas the risk is getting caught is higher due to the slow animation and the reward is an instant kill.
MANTLE
Advanced Locomotion System (ALS) includes a mantle system which was a perfect mechanic for this project. This can be used to reach and infiltrate the fort’s walls as well as having the option to shortcut.
DESIGN
I felt it would be important to design a fort that also would be sieged by an army, therefore I added three different elevations, implementing a maze style fort, and adding sections where it would make sense to place defensive infantry.
ENTRY POINTS
There are several entrance points in this level:
You can reach the objectives much faster through the gates.
The second entrance points are scaffolding, they are found further away from the objectives.
The last entry point is a tree found outside the fort that can be used to enter the fort’s walls swiftly.
In conclusion as there are a handful of ways to enter the fort and depending on the playstyle there is always balanced gameplay.
For example, the risk of using the gate may be a fast way to reach an objective but it always attracts guards.
Ascending with the help of scaffolding and hiding prevents confrontation, furthermore, using the tree to reach the walls is the fastest than the other two options but will always attract a specific NPC when used.
VANTAGE POINTS
I liked the idea of having a main vantage point outside of the fort that did not reveal too much but enough for the player to plan an infiltration route as well as an escape route.
With all the different towers and roof tops vantage points naturally came to be, as well as a place where the player could take a breather and plan their next move.
LEADING LINES
With the help of the first leading line the player can immediately see their first objective on one of the rooftops, and with this information they can find all the objectives without even setting foot inside the fort.
ENEMY PATHING
Enemy pathing is of course the most important in this level since it makes the most of the gameplay.
The enemies have two different pathing behaviors, they can either stand still and guard, they can also patrol, when they patrol, they will go for example from A-B-C and then walk back from C-B-A.
Guarding enemies can be found near gates as well as on walls facing outwards, this leads to easy targets.
Along with the guarding enemies on the walls we can find patrolling enemies, and enemies patrolling within the fort.
PROCESS
I started off by finding a reference fort in Odyssey to figure out metrics, so I used the player mesh in the game as a reference.
As soon as I had a plausible sketch, I made a material from it and applied it to a decal. This made it easier to iterate and sculpt a landscape as well as creating a blockout.
I wanted the level to be less cluttered from markers and UI so instead of using them I decided to use leading lines.
There was an issue with looping paths for the patrolling AI, I didn’t have the time to solve it and decided to remove looping paths. However, the incrementing and decrementing patrol tasks I did keep.
REFLECTIONS
This project taught me a lot; I learned about utilizing a whole new system (ALS) that I have never touched before as well as implementing animations to adapt to their system, which was incredibly fun to explore.
I am extremely satisfied with the outcome of this project, with all the time saving thanks to ALS and a previous scripting assignment (patrolling AI), I could focus on level designing and model my own assets.
I had to issue a “kill your darlings” because I had no time solving them, for example an issue with climbing mechanic taught me to find other ways to design so that the player may access the fort undetected.
If I had more time I would work more on AI behavior, react on dead bodies and a detection bar, along with the more advanced climbing mechanic.