Ubisoft Next: The Blockbuster

Role:
Level Designer

Description:

Ubisoft NEXT

FPS Far Cry Mission

Tools:
Unreal Engine 5, Powerpoint, Paper

Team Size:

Solo

Duration:

3 Months

DOWNLOAD

Download

My submission to the Ubisoft NEXT 2024 Level Design Competition!

For this project, my responsibilities included:

Adhering to Project Scope as Specified by Ubisoft:
- Using Ubisoft's provided Gameplay Ingredients (Including assessing their gameplay relationships and deciding which to utilize for the mission)
- Adherence with level boundaries and limitations.
- Using a provided Modular Kit to adapt layout plans in-engine.

Coherent and concise Design Documentation for Mission Development Stages:
- Drafting an initial Mission Design Document.
- Compiling a changelog to document adjustments made during the 3D build.

Assembling Planned Level Layout in Unreal Engine 5:
- Adapting 2D layout to a new 3D context.
- Tough critical decisions, such as cutting entire sections.
- Being open to potential new gameplay opportunities aligned to the spirit of the initial mission concept.

Playtesting, Playtesting, Playtesting:
- Organizing and conducting playtesting sessions.
- Analyzing feedback, deriving actionable tasks to help improve in the level's design.

Gameplay

Details

Phase 1

Research & Planning

For the first phase of the project, contestants were tasked to create a Mission Design Document set in the Far Cry universe. In particular, we were asked to include a concise mission description and annotated 2D top-down overview maps detailing gameplay ingredient placement, walkthrough details and reference images.

In preparation for the document, I spent a significant amount of time studying and highlighting the documentation provided by Ubisoft as well as brainstorming and drafting numerous concepts and layout ideas on paper. This period was a very divergent and creative process where I employed just about every technique I could think of, from partis to sketches to analysis, in order to internalize my understanding of the project and it's contents.

One of the things I did to internalize the project's gameplay elements was to go through NEXT's provided Level Design Master Features List and list each of their qualities and usage guides as provided in the document.

Additionally, I would note potential in-game usecases for these gameplay ingredients that could help contribute to things like guidance, level leading, or other considerations I felt were important.

Above is a small example of my gameplay ingredient breakdowns

Once I settled on a setting and theme, I spent a lot of time drafting potential layouts. I took a number of approaches to this, including creating a low-level beat chart and interpreting clusters of beats into "rooms," creating a parti and bubble graphs, and sketching interior and exterior layouts based on these initial prompts.

I found that approaching the early phase of design with multiple methodologies allowed me to have a more holistic view of the different elements of the level, viewing design problems from various angles.

I also found that these methods would help inform each other upon repeated iterations.

The main point of this process was to keep things loose, iterative, and disposable, allowing the common design to "emerge" from all these different techniques.

Mission Design Document

Based off my work prior, I was able to begin with a solid 16-page Mission Design Document. Naturally iteration, creativity and design shifts didn't stop with the paper drafting, and I would consider and adapt my design up until I had finished the final draft of the document.

Download the MDD here:

Phase 2

Changelist Document & Playable Blockout

For the second phase, we were tasked with taking our initial design and creating a greybox level in Unreal Engine 5 using a gameplay package provided to us by Ubisoft.

With this came several restrictions such as the level boundaries being restricted to a 128mx128m space (with the mission objective space being within a 64mx64m volume within this space), AI actor count limit, and some tricky buggy gameplay elements which we were encouraged to debug.

On top of building, testing, debugging and scripting, we were also expected to document our level changes and our debugging efforts into a Changelist Document!