My Work
I was the primary Level Designer on the 1st and 2nd missions in The Only Way To Be Sure campaign, responsible for creating sections of Katanga station lost to the Xenomorph hive. My work included altering existing spaces and creating new combat areas using hive splines, designing encounters and enemy pathing lanes, defining POI’s and level flow, placing spawn points, and creating cover combat encounters for the Synth enemy type.
I also switched over to help as an Environment Artist for a few months after LD work was complete, contributing world building and set dressing to the 1st and 2nd mission. I was responsible for all of the Hive hallways in the 2nd mission, placing final art splines, vfx, static meshes, decals, and first pass lighting. I also did finalization and cohesion passes in all of the major hive rooms in the 2nd mission, ensuring the hive splines flowed properly according to the Art Director’s vision, and placing decals to blend splines with static meshes.
The only way to be sure - search
For the 2nd mission in the final campaign, we wanted players to feel fully immersed the hive atmosphere introduced in the Aliens film. Doing this required taking the look of the film and expanding it greatly. Art direction came up with the idea that hive tendrils should flow like wind lines on a weather map, adding a sort of disgusting beauty to the environment. This required that I block out all rooms with this direction in mind from the beginning, using final art splines to make pathing surfaces for enemies and define gameplay areas.
Another main directive was that it should feel like the player is in the Xenomorphs’ home, with Xenos able to come from anywhere at any time. Achieving this meant that I placed tons of spawn points placed in strategic locations that made players feel overwhelmed, while still allowing them to see the enemy before they were attacked to avoid frustration and fatigue.
The only way to be sure - breach
The 1st mission in the campaign, Breach, is players’ introduction to the entrance of the Xenomorph hive. The first third of the mission is almost exclusively cover combat with the Synth enemy group, requiring a wholly different style of level and encounter design. This required a more layered approach in the room layouts, making it so players could fight close range enemies, then have several options of how to advance to the next layer of the room, eventually taking out the elite enemy at the top.
This mission was also the first implementation of allowing Xenos to crawl on the walls and ceilings using hive splines, and I was responsible for solving all collision and Navmesh issues that arose during the process.
Environment art contributions
When I switched over to help out the art team for a few months, I was initially responsible for placing all splines, static meshes, decals, and first pass vfx and lighting in all hived hallways in the Search mission. I was able to complete this ahead of schedule, and was then asked to do finalization passes in most combat rooms in missions 1 and 2. Overall, I contributed large amounts of shipping art to most spaces in mission 2, and the last couple spaces in mission 1.
